In 1996, he was asked by Paula Rego, his mother-in-law,[3] to make a small figure of Pinocchio for her group exhibition Spellbound: Art and Film, at the Hayward Gallery, London.

This portrayal of his recently deceased father—at roughly half-scale[5] and made from memory and imagination—was included in the 1997 exhibition Sensation at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

During this two-year post he created the works Mother and Child, Pregnant Woman, Man in a Boat, and Swaddled Baby and culminated in an exhibition in 2003.

[14] The exhibition features, among others, En Garde (2023), Mass (2016-2017), Big Baby II (1996-97), Man in Blankets (2000), and Couple under an Umbrella (2013), which is permanently on display as one of the museum’s highlights.

Mueck's sculpture responds to the minute details of the human body, playing with scale to produce engrossing visual images (a style known as hyperrealism).