Artworks

The copper figure of Christ, ‘our leader, our protector, our friend’, was the first work of the renowned Australian sculptor Tom Bass in Adelaide. The statue, a larger-than-life figure, triumphant rather than suffering, was erected in 1967. It was donated by Mrs Lena Jordan, mother of Sr Deirdre Jordan, Principal of St Aloysius College from 1954 to 1968.

Bass had asked the girls ‘What kind of Christ they wanted for their own’ and because the girls suggested that ‘He should be among them’, a central position was chosen. It was placed within reach of passers-by on an outside wall of the new senior school, the Campion Jordan Building.

The statue was relocated in 2009 during the school’s expansion, when the Catherine McAuley Centre lift tower was chosen as a more central and prominent location.

By Carol Grantham
St Aloysius College Archivist, 2026

References

Gale, F (Ed.) 2000, Making space: women and education at St Aloysius College Adelaide 1880-2000, St Aloysius College, Adelaide. pp.110-111.

Statue of Jesus. (1967). St Aloysius College Magazine, 9.