Pietro Giacomo Porcelli

1872-1943

Born in Bisceglie Italy, in the province of Bari, he moved to Sydney with his fisherman father at the age of 8.

After initial training at the New South Wales Academy of Art, he furthered his study of sculpture and drawing in Naples, before returning to Fremantle with his father in 1898. Later that year, he completed his first commission – a bust of Sir John Forrest that now stands in the main entrance hall of Parliament House in Perth.

His 1902 statue of Alexander Forrest was the first such statue of a prominent public figure to be completed in Perth. He also created the imposing figure of Providence which stood atop the seven-storey AMP Chambers at the corner of St George's Tce and William St, which was completed in 1915, but was demolished in 1972 and moved to Floreat Lakes.

Porcelli also completed war memorials in Kalgoorlie, Boulder, Victoria Park, West Leederville and Moora, and numerous headstones in Karrakatta and Fremantle Cemeteries, including that of Sir John Forrest in 1918.

After a period of work in Melbourne in the 1920s, he returned to Perth in 1939, where he died in 1943. He is buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.