Eduardo Paolozzi

SIR EDUARDO PAOLOZZI (CBE, RA) (1924-2005)

Eduardo Paolozzi was one of Britain's leading sculptors from the 1940s up until the early 2000s. Following ground-breaking exhibitions at the ICA in the 1950s with the Independent Group, such as Growth and Form (1951); Parallel of Art and Life (1953); and This is Tomorrow (1956); he is acknowledged as one of the creators of British Pop Art. Paolozzi repeatedly experimented with metamorphosing the human figure, blending geometry with nature. Having witnessed huge technological changes during his lifetime, Paolozzi’s work examined the interface between art and science, man and machine. He conveyed a humorous but poignant message of a technological world in which people run the risk of becoming extent, rendering man as a graphic avatar, human flesh supplanted by machinery.

Paolozzi was born of Italian parents in Leith, in 1924. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art (1943-44), St Martin's School of Art (1944-45), and the Slade School of Fine Art (1945-47). Some of his most notable public works include the recently reconstructed murals at Tottenham Court Road underground station, the Piscator sculpture outside Euston Station London and Newton, after William Blake in the piazza of the British Library. His work has been exhibited at The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Tate Gallery, London and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to name but a few. It is also held in numerous public and private collections, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; The Royal College of Art, London; Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, the Arts Council of England and University of Albany, New York, USA.