Eduardo Paolozzi

Eduardo Paolozzi was born of Italian parents in Leith, Edinburgh, in 1924. He attended evening classes at Edinburgh College of Art (1943) with the intention of becoming a commercial artist and then studied at St Martin's School of Art (1944) and at the Slade School of Fine Art (1945-47). In 1947 he went to Paris, living there for two years, enrolling…

Eduardo Paolozzi was born of Italian parents in Leith, Edinburgh, in 1924. He attended evening classes at Edinburgh College of Art (1943) with the intention of becoming a commercial artist and then studied at St Martin's School of Art (1944) and at the Slade School of Fine Art (1945-47). In 1947 he went to Paris, living there for two years, enrolling briefly at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and meeting artists such as Arp, Brâncusi, Giacometti and Léger. Back in London he taught in several art schools, whilst developing his sculpture and printmaking.

Paolozzi was awarded a CBE in 1968 and became a Royal Academician in 1979. In 1981 Paolozzi was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. Among later appointments were those of Professor of Ceramics at the Royal College of Art and Visiting Professor at Edinburgh School of Art. In 1986, Paolozzi was promoted to the office of Her Majesty's Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland in 1986, which he held until his death in April 2005. Paolozzi was awarded KBE and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

Numerous solo and group exhibitions have followed since Paolozzi's first solo exhibition at the Mayor Gallery, London, in 1947. He represented Britain at the 30th Venice Biennale in 1960, winning the David E. Bright award for the best artist under thirty. A 70th Birthday Exhibition of Paolozzi's sculpture and graphics was organised at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1994, and an exhibition of his graphics, first shown at the Edinburgh Festival in 1996, toured internationally by the British Council.

Paolozzi's work was based on his interest in the mass media, and new developments in science and technology of the post-war era - an exploration of the modern age. A founder of the Independent Group in 1952, which is regarded as the precursor to the mid-1950s British and late-1950s American Pop Art movements, Paolozzi's seminal 1947 collage I was a Rich Man's Plaything is considered the earliest example of Pop Art. He was also influenced by industrial techniques, making many of his early sculptures in aluminium, incorporating what appeared to be engine parts, brightly painted or finished in polished chrome. Human images that have mechanistic characteristics are his hallmark, as are the complex scenarios in the surrealist mechanical fantasies he produced in sculpture, collage, drawing and print.

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. This gift included a substantial number of sculptures, prints and drawings, as well as numerous artefacts (books, toys, machine parts and other items), which inspired his work. In 1999, the National Galleries of Scotland opened the Dean Gallery to display this collection, and the gallery continues to display a recreation of Paolozzi's studio, with its contents evoking the original London and Munich locations.

Paolozzi died in April 2005, but his work continues to be exhibited internationally, to great acclaim.