World Art Utopia

Cow Up a Tree

A black-and-white bronze cow wedged upside down in the fork of a bare bronze tree on the Docklands waterfront, with the Bolte Bridge behind.
Artwork FileMelbourne, Australia

Cow Up a Tree

SeenDec 2023

John Kelly · 2000 · bronze, oil-based paint · Docklands, Melbourne

Photo: Shkuru Afshar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), dated 1 December 2023, resized, as published on Street Art Utopia (The Joke Is Built In (26 Photos), 31 October 2026).

A black-and-white cow hangs upside down in the fork of a bare tree on Harbour Esplanade in Docklands. John Kelly’s bronze, dated 2000, stands eight metres high and belongs to the City of Melbourne’s Art and Heritage Collection. Source Source Checked

Seen Dec 2023 — Shkuru Afshar’s photo on Wikimedia Commons, dated 1 December 2023, shows the cow in its tree on the Docklands waterfront. We found no later dated photograph and no report that it has been moved. Source Checked

💡 4 things to know

  1. A cow left by a floodThe City of Melbourne says Kelly was inspired by images of cows swept away during flooding in Gippsland; when the water went down, one cow was left stranded high in a tree. Source Reported
  2. Dobell’s camouflage cowsThe City’s record says the painter William Dobell made papier-mâché cows during the war to mislead Japanese pilots on an airfield. Wikipedia says there is very little historical record that these cows existed, and Time Out says there is no evidence that they did. Source Source Source Conflicting
  3. A nod to an Archibald portraitThe cow’s long neck and small head link it to Dobell’s Archibald Prize-winning portrait of Joshua Smith, the painting at the centre of a wartime court case. Source Reported
  4. First shown in ParisThe work was part of the “Champs de la Sculpture” exhibition on the Champs-Élysées in 1999; Wikipedia says it was made at the Coubertin Foundation outside Paris and that one of three casts in the edition went back to Melbourne. Source Source Reported

📍 Where it is

Harbour Esplanade, Docklands, Melbourne: south of the Capital City Trail, between Central Pier One and Harbour Lights Landing, according to the City of Melbourne record. The Maps button opens Google Street View (July 2014) facing the work. Source Source Checked

Open in Maps

🗓️ Sightings

  1. 2014Jul

    Google Street View

  2. 201925 Sep

    Time Out: lives in Docklands

  3. 20231 Dec

    Photo by Shkuru Afshar

Green stamps mark dated photographs; amber stamps mark records or reports; red stamps mark loss. Publication dates are not camera dates.

🗞️ In the sources

City of Melbourne Art and Heritage CollectionRecord 1092460

“The artist was inspired to create this work after seeing images of cows swept away during terrible flooding in Gippsland; when the floodwaters subsided the carcass of one cow was stranded high and dry in a tree.”

Read the source →

Time Out Melbourne25 September 2019

“There’s no evidence that they actually existed.”

On the rumour of William Dobell’s papier-mâché camouflage cows.

Read the source →

✅ The facts

Artist
John Kelly Source Source Source Checked
Year
2000 Source Checked
Medium
Bronze, oil-based paint Source Checked
Height
8 metres Source Source Checked
Weight
Five tonnes (City of Melbourne) or four tons (Wikipedia, Atlas Obscura); we lean to the City’s record, the owner of the work Source Source Source Conflicting
Place
Harbour Esplanade, Docklands, Melbourne Source Source Checked
Collection
City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection, registration no. 1092460 Source Checked

🔗 Related

All sources & image credits

Last checked: 1 November 2026. How we verify art