Mr Poetry

Peter Corlett’s sculpture Mr. Poetry (1994) on Brunswick Street Fitzroy is based on poet and performer Adrian Rawlins. Peter Corlett is Australia’s leading figurative sculptor but at the time his career was just taking off.

Peter Corlett, Mr Poetry, 1994

The Fitzroy City Council advertised three times in the newspaper for applications for commissions and each time the money offered went up. The final price was enough to cover the foundry costs and Peter Corlett made an application as he always wanted to have a sculpture on his “local high street”, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

In the early 1990s Fitzroy City Council commissioned various sculptures to revitalise Brunswick Street and firmly place it as Melbourne’s boho hipster location. Brunswick St. Fitzroy had became established as an alternate cultural centre in the mid-1980s with galleries, pubs with bands, bookshops and moderately priced restaurants. Recognising Brunswick St. Fitzroy as a cultural centre and using Federal Government money in 1992 a number works of public art were added along the street. There are a number of sidewalk mosaics, mosaic covered chairs, decorative eccentric sculptural shop signs and the odd statue.

The life-sized laughing fat man sits precariously balanced on the edge of one of the tallest plinths that Corelett ever has used. The tall deliberately misaligned plinth is intended to be plastered with band posters.

Corlett relates that shortly after receiving the commission he was in Mario’s Cafe on Brunswick Street. In the cafe at the time were some local rock musicians and one of them remarked that they would blow it up. Corlett wasn’t sure if they were serious or joking; Adrian Rawlins was not that popular.

The sculpture was not blown up but it became a Saturday night ritual to set fire to the layers of posters and watch the flames surround the statue. I haven’t seen this happen myself but I have seen the scorched evidence around the plinth.

Adrian Rawlins had made his reputation by being around Melbourne’s small art scene of the 50s and 60s as an actor. He briefly ran a jazz club in the 1960s and in 1970 he was the MC at Australia’s first rock festival. He then co-compared the 1972 Sunbury Rock Festival. According to some sources, Rawlins really made his reputation by selling marijuana to Bob Dylan on his Australian tour. I briefly shared a house with Adrian and found that he was both lazy and  greedy (and he never provided me with any ganja). Corlett tells that Adrian wanted to charge double the usual modelling fee so Corlett agreed and halved the time.

When Corlett made the statue it was not memorial, it has now become one. With the addition of another larger bronze plaque dedicated to the model Adrian Rawlins (1939-2001) the sculpture is transform into a memorial.