Creator of hyper-realistic sculptures modelled in clay, then cast in fibreglass or silicone and resin, the resulting figures sometimes being eerie and disturbing. Mueck (pronounced Muke) was born in Melbourne, Australia, where he worked on and with puppets for television. In the mid-1980s he was engaged on the children’s television series Sesame Street and in films including Labyrinth after which he was self-employed making models for advertising, then turned to sculpture. The painter and printmaker Paula Rego used his 1995 Little Boy/Pinocchio figure in a series of pictures. Mueck’s meticulously detailed yet child-size model of his late father, Dead Dad, was one of the most remarked-upon exhibits in the Saatchi Collection-related exhibition Sensation at the RA, 1997.