COOK & BANKS

I have passed these statues many times, and today I stopped and took a few photos.

Tom Offermann happened to be outside his offices and I asked him about the statues. He saw a statue in Melbourne ‘Three Businessmen Who Brought Their Lunch. Batman, Swanston & Hoddle’ and was so impressed with the artwork that he commissioned the artists to create ‘Cook and Banks’ who were Noosa Heads’ first privately funded civic art pieces.

Tom said that the sculptures are his contribution to Noosa Civic Art.

The names (courtesy of artists Paul Quinn and Alison Weaver) are a tribute to Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, who actually never set foot in Noosa.

1770: Captain Cook sailed past, admiring the rainbow hued sand cliffs of the Noosa North Shore. Cook (and Matthew Flinders in 1802) failed to detect the mouth of the Noosa River but noted that Laguna Bay was “an open sandy bay” and a “bight in the coast”…Noosa Library Timeline.

The figures were moulded in clay, cast in plaster and finally in bronze. This is known as the ‘lost wax’ method of casting.

The two pieces have an ‘other world’ feel to them, with long spindly limbs, bulging eyes and surprised expressions on their faces. There is a serious colonial edge with their black trousers, but a Noosa feel in the aqua coloured shirts the pair are wearing.

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