Greer Twiss
Greer Lascelles Twiss was a New Zealand sculptor, and in 2011 was the recipient of an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, limited to 20 living art-makers.
Life and career
Twiss was born in Auckland on 23 June 1937, taking up sculpture in the 1950s. He graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 1960 with a Diploma of Fine Arts with honours. In 1965, he received a QEII Arts Council Travel Grant, which he used to study lost-wax casting in Europe. He is best known for his works in bronze. In 1966, he was appointed a lecturer at Elam, and he eventually became the head of sculpture there in 1974. He retired in 1998.Twiss primarily focused on life-sized sculptures in the 1960s, including the fibreglass series Frozen Frames, and the 1969 bronze sculpture and fountain Karangahape Rocks. By the 1970s, Twiss began focusing on creating works that sound freestand within gallery spaces. Works such as Barriers ''Site/Sight Works and Tripods are pieces which date from the mid-1970s, which explore spatial definition.
In 1989, Twiss spent two months living in Europe, inspired to utilise the ideas he had developed there in his later works, such as Scene One Act One'', a work where Twiss explored the differences between expectations of travel and reality.
Twiss died in Auckland on 17 July 2025, at the age of 88.