Eduardo Paolozzi

Dates: b.1924 - d.2005

Gender: Male

Nationality: British

Born to Italian parents in Edinburgh in March 1924, Eduardo Paolozzi was a prolific sculptor, collagist and print maker. He is widely regarded as one of the fathers of British Pop Art. During the 1940’s he studied at Edinburgh College of Art and St Martin’s School of Art before attending the Slade School of Art in Oxford from 1945- 1947. Read more…

Biography:

Born to Italian parents in Edinburgh in March 1924, Eduardo Paolozzi was a prolific sculptor, collagist and print maker. He is widely regarded as one of the fathers of British Pop Art. During the 1940’s he studied at Edinburgh College of Art and St Martin’s School of Art before attending the Slade School of Art in Oxford from 1945- 1947. After finishing his studies Paolozzi spent several years in Paris, where he knew Giacometti and Leger, and was influenced by the work of the surrealists and dadists. He also developed an interest in popular culture and was stimulated by the ‘art brut’ of Jean Dubuffet. He created collages from American magazines and the glossy covers of cheap novels. Partly made for the amusement of his friends, these works are considered early examples of ‘pop art’.

On his return to London Paolozzi furthered his interest in popular culture through his association with the ‘Independent Group’. A loose collective of individuals drawn mainly from young members of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, they met to discuss developments in science, technology and popular culture, which they felt were ignored by the art establishment. His obituary in the Guardian describes how, “At the group's first meeting, Paolozzi projected a large number of his collages on to a screen. For most of his audience, the juxtaposition of the weighty and trivial, the artistic and technological, was a revelation. The collages suggested a radically new aesthetic, which, before the end of the decade, was to form the basis of pop.”

During the 1960’s Paolozzi’s style changed and his sculpture became increasingly robotic and machinelike. Made from aluminium and painted in bright primary colours they formed a central part of the increasingly established ‘pop art’ movement. He also completed some of his most acclaimed print work. Most notable, ‘As Is When’, is a series of 12 screen prints based loosely on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1962 Paolozzi branched out into experimental film with ‘The History of Nothing’.

Throughout his career Paolozzi held academic posts. He taught design at the Central School of Art and Design in London from 1949 to 1955 and changed to the St. Martin's School of Art in 1955. He taught in Germany throughout the 1970’s and was very taken with the dynamism and energy of its cities. In 1994 Paolozzi gave the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art a large body of his works, and much of the content of his artist's studio.