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 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.
In 1981 he 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.
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 XXX 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, was toured internationally by the British Council.
Paolozzi's work is based on his interest in the mass media, and in new developments in science and technology of the post-war era. 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 most complex scenarios in the mechanical fantasies he produced in three dimensions, collage, drawing and print.
