Greer Twiss 1937-2025

ARTIS Gallery is sad to acknowledge the death of Greer Twiss on 15 July 2025 - one of New Zealand's most prominent sculptors.  Twiss was born in Auckland in 1937 and graduated from the Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University with Honours in 1960.

In 1965, Twiss was awarded a Study Grant. This gave him the opportunity to travel through Britain and Europe where he studied a lost-wax process that contributed to the formulation of his own artistic style.  

Twiss became a lecturer at Elam in 1966 and became head of sculpture in 1974. He was a prominent teacher until 1998 and influenced a generation of young artists. Aside from teaching Twiss exhibited regularly throughout New Zealand, Australia and internationally. Twiss intertwined his own view on life with the imagined view of others in his work. His sculptures reflect an ordinary activity, place or being,  but are cast through the eyes of an entirely new perspective. As seen with A Group of Athletes, 1964, Twiss has captured a simple movement through an unrealistic depiction of runners with disproportionate figures.

 

Twiss' sculpture is included in public and private collections in New Zealand including Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. His work is also represented in numerous international public and private collections.