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Eduardo Paolozzi: Collaging Culture

Lord Snowdon (b.1930), Eduardo Paolozzi in his Studio, Chelsea (from The Sunday Times Magazine), 1963, Digital photographic print, scanned from original negative, Pallant House Gallery (Presented by the artist, 2007)

Biography

Eduardo Paolozzi was born to Italian parents in Edinburgh in 1924. Growing up in the

interwar period during the 1920s and 1930s Paolozzi lived in a household and society where everything was utilised and nothing was wasted. As a young boy Paolozzi would draw onto recycled pieces of paper and produce scrapbooks out of cuttings from comic books and magazines. This early focus on collage, interest in popular culture and the reuse of materials are evident in much of the artist’s later work.

Initially training to become a commercial artist Paolozzi studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He then went on to attend St. Martin’s School of Art in London in 1944 and studied sculpture at Slade School of Art between 1945 and 1947. After his studies Paolozzi lived in Paris from 1947 to 1949 where he experienced the work of the Surrealists and Dadaists, along with meeting contemporary artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Jean Dubuffet. Paolozzi was particularly influenced by Giacometti’s handling of the human form and the art brut of Dubuffet.

After Paris from 1949 to 1955 Paolozzi taught at the Central School of Art and Design. In 1952 he became a founder of the Independent Group to whom he delivered his famous Bunk lecture at the ICA. In this lecture he presented the group with a series of images drawn from various sources of popular culture, advocating it for serious study. Many herald this moment as the birth of British Pop Art.

Away from the Pop Art aesthetic of the 1950s Paolozzi began exploring the anguish and pain of the human condition through sculpture and drawing, reacting to the horrors of war and post-war society. In the sculptures from this period the artist started using biomorphic forms in combination with mechanical impressions, exploring the relationship between man and technology.

During the 1960s Paolozzi revisited the process of screenprinting and started using curved and contoured forms in his sculptures, painting them with bright and unnatural colours. In 1971 the artist had a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery where he focused on the notion of man as an expendable object with direct references to the Vietnam War. Paolozzi received numerous public commissions throughout the 1970s and 1980s including the decoration for Tottenham Court Road station. Paolozzi also produced a bronze sculpture of Newton for the British Library, unveiled in 1997. Paolozzi died in London in 2005 aged 81. The artist gained international acclaim and success during his long and productive career.

Working Method Throughout his career Paolozzi worked across a variety of media including painting, sculpture, filmmaking, ceramics, textile design and collage.

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Focusing on various themes and drawing on many sources of inspiration Paolozzi’s work largely explores and blurs the distinction between high art and popular culture, the human condition, man’s relationship to technology, along with issues of production, consumption and waste.

Themes and ideas are frequently revisited by Paolozzi, explored across media and style. For example Paolozzi’s interest in the fragmented human head is evident in his collage and sculpture from the 1950s and is adopted again in different styles during the 1970s and 1980s. The head sculptures produced in the 1980s blend geometric and natural forms, a style which is also evident in his ‘machine idols’ of the 1950s and screenprints from the 1960s.

As a result of Paolozzi’s wide-ranging interest in media, artistic sources and styles, the artist’s body of work is highly diverse yet richly interlinked.

The ExhibitionThe exhibition provides a cohesive survey of Paolozzi’s work and its development from the 1940s onwards, exploring the central importance of collage as both a working process and an approach to bringing together disparate sources of inspiration. It features over 150 works from across his career, including early sculptures influenced by continental Surrealism, his textiles for Hammer Prints Ltd. and Horrockses Fashions in the 1950s, his innovative screenprints that made an important contribution to British Pop Art, ceramics designed for Wedgwood and Rosenthal, and maquettes for his later public commissions.

Words in this pack which are underlined refer to the References and Connection sections on pages 32 and 33.

Collage, 1957 (amended 1962), Ink, paper and card collage laid on paper, 33 x 55.9cm, Private collection

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1: Renewing Surrealism: The Early Work of Eduardo Paolozzi

Born in Leith, Scotland in 1924, Eduardo Paolozzi was the son of Italian immigrants

who ran an ice-cream and confectionary shop. As a young man he developed a passion for going to the movies, collecting cigarette cards and ephemera, and creating scrapbooks: activities that contributed to his lifelong interest in popular culture. At the outbreak of World War II his father and grandfather were interned and subsequently died when the ship the S.S. Arandora Star was torpedoed, and Paolozzi was enlisted to serve in the Pioneer Corps. After his discharge in 1944 he was accepted to study art at the Ruskin School in Oxford, and subsequently the Slade School of Art, where he made lifelong artist friends such as Nigel Henderson and William Turnbull. Inspired by the work of Pablo Picasso he created earthy and vigorous sculptures such as ‘Bull’ which did

Two Forms on a Rod, 1948-9, Bronze, 48.2 x 58.4 x 21.5cm, Private Collection, London

not conform to traditional concepts of refined sculpture then being taught at the Slade.

Paolozzi began collaging found imagery of machine parts and classical statuary having seen the Surrealist collages of Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters. In 1947, he moved to Paris with the proceeds of his first one-man exhibition at the Mayor Gallery. He met avant-garde artists including Jean Arp, Alberto Giacometti, Fernand Léger, and Tristan Tzara, and was influenced by the development of ‘Art Brut’ characterised by the work of Jean Dubuffet. Using American magazines given to him by former G.I.s Paolozzi began a series of collages entitled Bunk which were created from the glamorous advertisements of models, domestic appliances and cars that he described as an ‘extension of radical Surrealism.’

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Produced the year before Paolozzi travelled to Paris, this work reflects the artist’s early interests in collage, non-Western art and the European avant-garde. In 1945 the artist visited the V&A exhibition of Matisse and Picasso, which influenced Paolozzi to produce works with ‘primitive’ iconography and explore the medium of collage. Whilst studying at Slade School of Art in Oxford between 1945 and 1947 Paolozzi studied the ethnographic collection of the Pitts Rivers Museum, where he produced drawings of the art from non-Western cultures including tribal masks. In Fisherman and Wife Paolozzi draws on his own personal experiences in combination with the non-Western and avant-garde art that he encountered during the 1940s. The depiction of the fisherman is a reference to the artist’s visits to Newhaven harbour in Edinburgh, drawn in a reductive and ‘primitive’ manner.

1: Renewing Surrealism: The Early Work of Eduardo Paolozzi

Fisherman and Wife, 1946Indian ink, paper collage and watercolour on paper, 76.8 x 61 cmTate: Purchased 1959

Mask-like faces demonstrate Paolozzi’s engagement with non-Western artefacts during his stay in Oxford.

Cockerels – These spiky, elongated creatures were informed by Picasso’s paintings of cockerels created at the beginning of the twentieth century and again at the end of the Second World War.

Pasted elements – Rather than mirroring the more natural forms of the figures and fish these rectangular pieces of pasted paper are entirely abstract. Paolozzi is making the viewer explicitly aware that he has used the collage technique, showing his influence from Dadaist Kurt Schwitters.

Fish – Provide a personal element, revealing the artist’s own experience of harbours in Edinburgh.

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Dr Pepper, 1948Collage on paper, signed in ink lower centre, 35.8 x 23.8 cmTate: Presented by the artists 1995

1: Renewing Surrealism: The Early Work of Eduardo Paolozzi

Dr Pepper is part of a series of collages entitled ‘Bunk’ which Paolozzi presented during a lecture he delivered at the ICA in 1952. He drew his imagery from various sources of popular culture and by presenting them in this academic context, stated them worthy of serious analysis. In Dr Pepper Paolozzi takes images from American magazine advertisements which he recognised as having an ‘exotic’ appeal. These vibrant images of American consumerism would have been a stark contrast to Britain’s current economic and social situation. In the late 1940s Britain was still under strict rationing, where products and images like those included in this collage would have been seen as alien as most were not yet available in the country. Paolozzi was also interested in the aesthetic properties of these advertisements, engaging with their use of colour and form in particular.

Female figures – These images were lifted from American magazines that Paolozzi had collected from GI’s stationed in Paris after the war. These representations of actual and cartoon women reflect gender roles in post-war American advertisements and how they were used to sell consumer products.

Oven – Reinforces the domestic role of women during the 1940s and potentially mocks the allure of consumer products which could be considered as banal.

Dr Pepper – Title of the piece is included in the collage itself, in the form of the product’s logo. Paolozzi used soft drink advertisements as his subject in Refreshing and Delicious and Real Gold both of which are part of the Bunk series.

Car – Acts as a symbol of America’s booming post-war economy and industry, contrasting to the depravation experienced in Britain.

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2. Collage, Textiles and The Independent Group in the 1950s

After his return to London from Paris in 1949 Paolozzi started teaching in the

textile design department of the Central School of Art and Design. He produced screenprints that were often inspired by organic forms, and paper collages that reveal his interest in the unconscious imagery of abstract expressionism and the torn papers of Kurt Schwitters and Jean Arp. Paolozzi developed textile designs from his collages, which were translated into fabrics by companies such as Horrockses and David Whitehead Ltd. In 1954 he and Nigel Henderson set up Hammer Prints Ltd. to publish screenprinted textiles, ceramics and wallpapers.

Paolozzi and Henderson were key figures in the Independent Group of artists, architects and critics that met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London from 1952 to 1955 and discussed topics such as science fiction, fashion, American advertising, car design, popular music, western films, architecture and art. He collaborated with Henderson and the Smithsons on influential exhibitions associated with the Independent Group such as Parallel of Life and Art in 1953 and This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956. These featured extraordinary installations of disparate imagery proposing new ways of looking and questioning notions of what was worthy of inclusion in an art gallery. The work presented typified a movement known as ‘New Brutalism’ that was associated with art and architecture at this time. Eduardo Paolozzi for Horrockses Fashions, Dress designed

by John Tullis, 1953, Printed cotton, On loan from the Fine Art Society

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In his sculptural work of the late 1950s Paolozzi focused predominantly on the human figure, however he did produce some works depicting various animals. In Large Frog Paolozzi has metamorphosed the physical form of the frog, which confronts the viewer with its mouth wide open. Paolozzi’s method of building rich layers of pattern and imagery in his earlier paper collages was now manifested in these sculptural works. The artist achieved his unique effect by pressing found objects into clay to produce a negative mould and then poured molten wax into the imprint to create the desired surface. The plastic and malleable qualities of wax allowed Paolozzi to manipulate the surface until the piece was cast in bronze. In this sculpture Paolozzi uses biomorphic and mechanical styles to represent the amphibian, referencing his surrealist inspired sculpture from the late 1940s and interest in industrial and mass produced aesthetics. The raw style and animalistic subject matter also reflects the influence of art brut on Paolozzi after he was exposed to the work of Dubuffet during his stay in Paris between 1947 and 1949.

Large Frog (New Version), 1958Bronze, 73 x 83 x 83 cm British Council Collection

2. Collage, Textiles and The Independent Group in the 1950s

Mouth of the frog – Paolozzi imprinted part of a piano keyboard into clay to create this impression on the sculpture. Legs – Trumpet-like forms function as legs, reflecting the interplay between natural and manmade forms in Paolozzi’s sculptures and his interest in metamorphosing organic figures.

Encrusted surface – The building up of found objects and materials on the sculpture’s surface is reminiscent of the collages that Paolozzi made during the 1940s and 1950s. In both examples the artist has appropriated mass produced objects, highlighting his interest in popular culture.

The development of Large Frog can be seen in a preparatory collage (right). The distinctive open mouth and richly patterned body was retained in his finished sculpture.

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Credit for this image

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3. Metamorphosis of Rubbish

The image of man was the predominant concern in Paolozzi’s sculpture of the 1950s.

The artist was drawn to the qualities of the human head and produced a series of segmented heads collaged from portraits on the covers of ‘Time’ magazine. At this time he also produced sculptures such as Shattered Head, Bandaged Head and Mr Cruikshank, which convey both man’s vulnerability and resilience. Against the cultural background of the Cold War and the atomic age the artist’s focus on the enduring qualities of the individual man took on an existential resonance.

In 1953 Paolozzi began casting bronze sculptures using the lost-wax technique. He developed a technique of pressing found objects such as machine parts and toys into a bed of clay which would then be cast in wax, before being cast into

Head. Mr Cruikshank, 1950, Bronze with a brown patina, 27.9cm highThe Ingram Collection of Modern and Contemporary British Art

bronze. Paolozzi observed that: ‘I use a collage technique in a plastic medium’ and described his approach as ‘the metamorphosis of rubbish’. He was fascinated with man’s relationship with the machine, and created totemic forms that suggest tribal fetishes, the detritus of modern industrial society and science fiction imagery. His approach to constructing forms from assemblage relates closely to his concurrent screenprints in which collaged images of machine parts are combined to create robotic human heads.

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This work is a part of a series of figurative sculptures that Paolozzi produced between 1955 and 1960. As with Large Frog the artist used the lost wax technique to create this sculpture, a method that originated in Ancient Egypt. In this work Paolozzi is exploring existential fear and the distorted human figure that Francis Bacon and Giacometti also engaged with during this period. On the sculpture’s encrusted surfaces there are identifiable traces of object trouvés drawn from mass culture. Through the mechanical visual language of this sculpture, man’s relationship with modern technology is communicated. This representation of a distorted natural form, using mechanical elements and where the subject is dehumanised, is a theme explored in the later work of Paolozzi. The artist also produced drawings and screenprints during this period which should be viewed in parallel to his sculptural work. This bronze piece can be viewed as a three-dimensional manifestation of such works.

3. Metamorphosis of Rubbish

Standing Figure, 1958Bronze, height: 88 cmPallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan, 2006)

Small punctures that run through the depth of the sculpture revealing its hollow core and Paolozzi’s working method.

Legs and torso are identifiably anatomical.

The thin legs of the sculpture demonstrate the influence of Giacometti’s existential work from the 1940s and 1950s on Paolozzi.

Arms and head, which are visible in the preparatory drawing (below), have been eliminated in the finished sculpture, reinforcing the idea that this is an incomplete, anguished and disturbed human form.

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From 1960 to 1962 Paolozzi was teaching at the Hochscule für bildende Künste in

Hamburg, where he used Surrealist methods to teach a course entitled ‘The Translation of Experience’. This approach fed into Paolozzi’s 12 minute black and white film called ‘The History of Nothing’ which he described as an ‘homage to Surrealism’. The film was an assemblage of still images, made with single-frame animation by shooting a series of collages created from pages of German photography books illustrating interior decoration, architecture and machinery. These incongruous images flash across the screen accompanied by primitive, exotic music to create ‘a peculiar reality in the perceiver’s mind from a sequence of unlike images.’ It makes a playful nod

4: The History of Nothing

to Max Ernst’s 1934 graphic novel Une Semaine de Bonté (A Week of Kindness), which was created from 182 images collaged from cut-up Victorian encyclopaedias and novels.

The non-linear sequence of disparate images in the film confounds any attempt by the viewer to make any logical connections or create a narrative, and instead the viewer is forced to rely on intuitive connections. The ideas and images in the film relate closely to Paolozzi’s artist’s book Metafiskal Translations (1962) which is a textual collage of poetic and fragmentary descriptive images and ideas, and informed some of his early screenprints such as Metallization of a Dream (1963).

Blick auf Monte S. Angelo, still from The History of Nothing, 1960, Collage on paper, 19.5 x 27.6cm, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan, 2006)

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This image is part of the film The History of Nothing that Paolozzi produced with Denis Postle between 1960 and 1962. The film is comprised of a succession of collages with their images taken from older books and magazines, generating a sense of nostalgia. In the film Paolozzi intended to convey what he considered to be the ‘schizophrenic quality of life’. The viewer is invited to construct a narrative from a series of disparate images, engaging with the subconscious cognitive process and the human condition in a modern world. This was similar to the way that Dadaists and Surrealists also engaged with the subconscious in their work. The title of the work is intended as a philosophical joke, demonstrating the element of wit which is evident across much of Paolozzi’s work. The artist described the film as an ‘homage to Surrealism’, containing particular references to the work of Max Ernst.

James Joyce and Dancer: Monument to Triestestill from The History of Nothing, 1960-62Collage on paper, 18.3 x 13.3cmPallant House (Wilson Loan, 2006)

4: The History of Nothing

A collaged photo of the modernist writer James Joyce, it contrasts to the brightly coloured American images that Paolozzi used in his Bunk series.

James Joyce is faced by the mechanical and robotic silhouette of a dancing woman. By depicting only these two figures in this collage, Paolozzi establishes a tension between man and machine.

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During the 1960s Paolozzi was seen as a leading British Pop artist. His sculptures

of the decade display a much sleeker machine aesthetic and instead of relying on found objects the artist bought new machine parts from engineering supply shops and mail-order catalogues. He created machine idols such as Artificial Sun using prefabricated geometric forms in aluminium that would be fabricated by technicians under the artist’s supervision. This sculpture relates closely to his innovative As is When screenprints based on the life and work of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who had developed a theory of language games in his writings. The prints were created from preparatory collages using a kit of weaving diagrams and engineering patterns, which made them particularly suitable for translation into woven tapestries,

5: Language Games: Prints and Sculpture in the 1960s

Artificial Sun, 1964, Aluminium, 241 x 142 x 116.8cm, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan, 2006)

such as the example shown here. In his print portfolios such as Moonstrips Empire News and General Dynamic Fun Paolozzi drew on a wide range of popular and technological cultural sources to create a free association between image and text. Paolozzi was interested in the way that technology is harnessed to satisfy popular taste and its psychological effect on society. The science fiction writings of his friend J.G. Ballard were also an important influence on the development of sculptures such as Crash Head and his prints based on car safety test dummies. In the late 1960s Paolozzi grew increasingly disillusioned with the American dream, due to his opposition to the Vietnam War, and sought to distance himself from the Pop artist label.

Credit for this image

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Paolozzi began exploring screenprinting in greater depth during the 1960s after focusing on traditional collage techniques since the 1940s. The artist preferred the mechanical nature of this process and its links to commercial art such as advertising, reflecting his anti-elitist standpoint. This folio was produced as part of an unbound book entitled Moonstrips Empire News which contained an assortment of text and images drawn from various sources, rendered in vividly bright colours. The image contains a juxtaposition of two iconic images; Mickey Mouse and a negative of Michelangelo’s David facing away from each other. Paolozzi uses these figurative images in combination with various geometric patterns and designs, a style that is adopted throughout the portfolio.

5: Language Games: Prints and Sculpture in the 1960s

The Silken World of Michelangelo from Moonstrips Empire News 1967Image and paper, 38 x 24.5 cm Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan)

Three figures at the top - Each have reductive yet recognisable human faces but with bodies that are comprised of brightly coloured spots. Here the artist is exploring the relationship between man, mass production and technology. This theme was also explored in Paolozzi’s bronze sculptures of the 1950s.

Michelangelo’s David –Often viewed as the quintessential sculpture of the Italian Renaissance and a defining image in art history, Michelangelo’s David has been chosen to represent the epitome of high art culture. By depicting the sculpture as a negative the artist may be asking the viewer to question the distinctions between high art and popular culture.

Title of the work – The text appears to have been lifted directly from a magazine or another kind of publication, a frequent occurrence in Moonstrips Empire News. This provides the screenprint with a collage like appearance.

Mickey Mouse – The viewer is asked to compare David to a representation of Mickey Mouse, an iconic symbol of American popular culture. This links back to Paolozzi’s famous Bunk lecture from 1952 where the artist advocated a serious study of popular culture as artefacts.

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Paolozzi developed a new abstract vocabulary in the 1970s that was inspired

by a reproduction of a 1920s German abstract painting representing organ music. He created a series of sculptural assemblage reliefs for restaurants and public spaces, such as the Apicella Relief, and related screenprints including the Calcium Light Night portfolio, which was based on the ‘collage’ approach of the music of the American composer Charles Ives.

Much of Paolozzi’s later output was focussed on public commissions, ranging from a monumental steel sculpture for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, Japan, to street sculptures in London, Edinburgh and Munich, and the vibrant mosaic decorations for Tottenham Court Road Underground station. Several of these sculptures, such as the Euston Head, revisit earlier themes in the artist’s work: man’s relationship with technology and the fragmented head. Many of his ideas were brought together in his sculpture of Newton after Blake commissioned by the architect Colin St John Wilson for the forecourt of the British Library, which was unveiled in 1997.

6: Public Monuments and Late Works

Calcium Light Night Four German Songs, 1974-6, screenprint on paper, 990 x 690, Pallant House Gallery , Wilson Loan (2004)

Apicella Relief, 1981, Wood and resin construction, 152.4 x 122cm, Private collection, London

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Newton after Blake is a maquette that served as the basis for the monumental bronze sculpture of the same subject that now stands in the forecourt of the British Museum, unveiled in 1997. The piece demonstrates Paolozzi’s fearless pursuit to look into the past for artistic inspiration, as well as drawing on modern ideas. The figure of Newton has been mechanised and partially fragmented, a style which the artist adopted frequently throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This maquette closely follows William Blake’s 1795 watercolour more so than the bronze piece which has been given the eyes of Michelangelo’s David and has a thicker and more rounded appearance. In Newton after Blake there is a witty interplay between Blake’s condemning of Newton’s wish to order the universe and the celebration of the scientist’s intellectual discoveries.

6: Public Monuments and Late Works

Newton after Blake 1993-4Plaster on wood base, 46.5 x 63.2 cm, inscribed on the left hand side ‘For Sandy & MJ Eduardo Paolozzi 1993-4’Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, 2006)

Newton’s face is cast downwards, fully immersed in his own work and oblivious to the world around him. In the 1989 piece Master of the Universe of the same subject, Paolozzi has covered Newton’s eyes to emphasise this metaphorical blindness.

The geometric forms evident on Newton’s chair and parts of his body highlight Paolozzi’s interest in mechanising and metamorphosing the human form. This geometric style may also been a reference to Newton’s mathematical approach to the universe.

On the floor Newton attempts to map out the universe, reducing it to mathematical proportions. It is this reductive thought of Newton’s that Blake was particularly critical of.

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Paolozzi once stated that ‘as an artist it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between

‘art’ and ‘craft.’ Despite being best-known as a sculptor in 1968 Paolozzi was appointed visiting tutor in the Ceramics Department of the Royal College of Art, a post which he held until 1989 when he was appointed Visiting Professor. He had not been trained as a potter and so his approach to teaching ceramics was to encourage his students to develop the ideas that underpinned their work, rather than concentrating on purely technical concerns. He taught many of the most significant potters and ceramic artists of the last 40 years, including Glenys Barton, Magdelene Odundo, Stephen Dixon and Carol McNichol.

7: Paolozzi and Ceramics

Plates from Variations on a Geometric Theme, c.1972, Transfer printed bone-china plates

Paolozzi designed several ceramic ranges for companies such as Wedgwood Ltd. and the German manufacturer Rosenthal. For the Variations on a Geometric Theme, a dinner service of plates, he used his collage approach to design geometric patterns that could be printed mechanically onto the bone china plates, rather than the traditional approach to painting by hand. The process of casting objects in plaster, which he frequently employed in later years, was a significant outcome of his understanding of ceramic casting methods.

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Paolozzi’s diverse style and frequent exploration into different media has

resulted in an eclectic body of work that can be contextualised and compared to a wide range of artists and movements. During the artist’s crucial stay in Paris during the late 1940s he was exposed to many European avant-garde artists, who held a lasting influence on the work of Paolozzi. It was during this period that Paolozzi produced his first collages, influenced particularly by the absurdist collages of Dada artist Max Ernst. In Paris Paolozzi also produced his first Surrealist work, in the form of biomorphic bronze sculptures. This Surrealist influence permeates much of the artist’s later work including his As is When series from the 1960s.

Contemporary European philosophy also proved to be a crucial influence on the work of Paolozzi. The artist was particularly interested in the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein who inspired his As is When series.

The genuine enthusiasm for popular culture and exterior perspective on American mass consumerism that Paolozzi had during the late 1940s and 1950s is often accredited with the birth of British Pop Art. The artist along with Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson and critic Laurence Alloway founded the Independent Group in 1952, who met at the ICA between 1952 and 1955. In the 1956 exhibition, This Is Tomorrow, for which Hamilton produced the iconic poster Just What is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?, Paolozzi contributed a l’art brut aesthetic to the Pop Art movement. Here Paolozzi represented human figures in anguished and tormented states, reacting to knowledge of the holocaust and Hiroshima. Similar expressions of the post war human condition were explored in the sculpture of Henry Moore and Giacometti during this period of uncertainty.

In the late 1950s Paolozzi began to explore the screenprinting process, four years before American Pop Artist Andy Warhol used it for his

Paolozzi in Context

iconic Marilyn images. Paolozzi revisited this technique again in the late 1960s preferring the mechanised and detached nature of the technique.

Due to Paolozzi’s interest in blurring the distinction between high art and popular culture the artist draws on a wide range of sources for inspiration, often making direct references to art and artists. The sources that Paolozzi draws upon throughout his career include Piet Mondrian, Michelangelo, ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, Disney cartoons, American advertisements and science fiction.

It proves difficult to establish a linear development in the work of Paolozzi, where styles, motifs and themes are revisited and altered frequently by the artist. For example the mosaic murals that the artist produced for Tottenham Court Road Underground Station clearly owes a lot to the Pop Art aesthetic that he developed in the 1950s and revisited in the 1970s.

Andy Warhol, From Marilyn, Screenprint on paper, 1967, 910 x 910 mm

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Paolozzi founded Hammer Prints Ltd in 1954 along with Nigel Henderson, whom he met while teaching at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Together the artists collectively produced eleven designs that could be printed onto wallpaper, ceramics or textiles. The monochromatic textile Barkcloth depicts various images of manmade objects including bicycles, glasses and keys. These are shown in combination with geometric designs of spirals, rough lines and dots. Through this crowded composition Paolozzi sought to convey what he considered to be the frantic and all-consuming nature of modern life.

Like Paolozzi, Marino Marini worked predominantly in sculpture throughout his career, although he did occasionally produce paintings and screenprints including Cavallo. This silk textile depicts two tiers of stylised black horses in dynamic movement upon a red background. The themes of horses and horsemen were frequently explored by Marini throughout his career, drawing on ancient Roman and Etruscan sculpture. The use of brighter colours and dynamism here is typical of Marini’s work from the 1950s where he began to engage with darker and more sinister themes.

Paolozzi in Context

Nigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi for Hammer Prints Ltd.Textile Barkcloth, c. 1954Hand screen-printed on cotton twill by Hammer Prints Ltd. Target Gallery, London

Marino MariniCavallo (Horse), c. 1959Silk textile, produced by Edinburgh WeaversHussey Bequest, Chichester District Council (1985)

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Paolozzi’s work has been described as an example of ‘a-focalism’ in art where there is no singular focal point to the work and each area is treated with equal attention. Similarly in Marini’s Cavallo the same horse is repeated five times without any being more significant than any other.

Paolozzi and Marini are both engaging with and reacting to contemporary life, to very different effects. Marini used the archetypal symbols of the horse and horseman to question the notion of heroism in the aftermath of the Second World War, whereas Paolozzi draws upon more mechanical iconography in order to depict a frenzied modern world.

The two images both display a reductive and minimal style, where the artists have chosen to use only two or three colours on their two-dimensional designs. Paolozzi may have chosen this approach due to the fact that Barkcloth was designed to be reproducible, whereas Marini’s work is direct in its expression due to its stylistic simplicity.

Throughout his career Paolozzi referenced iconic ancient sculptures such as Laocoön to engage with relationship between high art and popular culture. Marini explores ancient art in his work by referencing the tradition of equestrian portraiture in order to discuss contemporary issues, along with themes of war and humanity.

Paolozzi in Context

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In this work Paolozzi has depicted a fragmented and damaged human head, created using the lost wax technique which was also used to create Large Frog (New Version) and Standing Figure. The sculpture reflects Paolozzi’s recurring interest in human anguish and existence in the period after the Second World War. Henry Moore produced a series of Helmet Heads during the early 1950s that dealt with similar themes. Moore also sought to express his personal anxieties along with wider concerns as a result of the Second World War and the nuclear threat of the Korean War.

The artists, who here are both working in bronze, approach their subject matter very differently, yet evoke similar key thoughts and themes. Helmet Head reflects Moore’s distinct working method, where he believed that ‘truth to material’ was paramount. This approach is also evident in Moore’s earlier sculptures in wood and stone, where he recognised and utilised the qualities that make a material unique. In contrast Paolozzi adds to the texture of the bronze by including imprints from found objects creating a rough and textured final appearance. As a result of Paolozzi’s distinct approach the viewer is presented with a head that appears distressed and tormented, whereas Moore’s piece has a calm, eerie and sinister effect. Both works are examples of the artists returning to themes that they had addressed earlier on in their careers. Paolozzi had fragmented the human head in his Time collages from the early 1950s, while Moore had produced his first Helmet Head a decade earlier, between 1939 and 1940. Paolozzi and Moore both use the image of the head to represent the concept of human existence, whilst dealing with contemporary issues. The artists choose depict the motif as a vulnerable shell like structure, with Paolozzi’s being particularly susceptible to attack.

Paolozzi in Context

Eduardo Paolozzi, Shattered Head, 1956Bronze on stone basePrivate collection, London

Henry Moore, Helmet Head, 1952Bronze, Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council (1985)

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The curving organic completeness of Moore’s work encourages the viewer to engage with it from multiple perspectives, something that is true of most of the artist’s Helmet Head sculptures. The pierced holes in Paolozzi’s piece make the viewer aware that they are viewing a hollow structure and even allowing them to look all the way through the sculpture to the other side.

Both pieces are identifiably human yet are highly stylised and reduced in form. With Paolozzi’s work there is minimal detailing in order to convey wider themes of the human condition rather than a specific person. Moore uses a similar approach, reducing the facial features to their bare minimum. The eyes are seemingly suggested by two simplistic dots, although it is unclear to the viewer whether these part of the helmet, the head or the two combined.

The use of texturing on the right of Moore’s work generates a shell-like appearance, emphasising the protective function of the helmet or head, with the concentric lines suggestive of organic forms. In Shattered Head the layering of textures and materials creates the impression of scarring, reiterating the anguished nature of the piece.

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In 1979 Paolozzi was granted a major commission to create a series of decorative murals for Tottenham Court Road Underground Station. Through this commission Paolozzi was able to revisit the theme of man’s relationship with technology, which he had explored in his sculptural works and drawings from the 1950s. The design here showcases the brightly coloured geometric and linear patterns that were embodied in the final mosaic decorations of the underground station.

Grantchester Road by Hodgkin demonstrates the artist’s interest in producing emotive and expressive paintings that engaged with human responses and sensations. The painting reflects a shift in Hodgkin’s working method during the 1970s, where the artist would produce his work on wooden boards rather than canvases, in order for them to be more assertive and considered as physical objects. In this work Hodgkin is depicting Colin St John Wilson’s house in Cambridge using flat geometric motifs in combination with actual spatial depth.

Paolozzi in Context

Eduardo Paolozzi, Jazz, Design for Underground Mural in Tottenham Court Road, 1982Gouache on paper, 41.9 x 29.6 cm, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through the Art Fund, 2006)

Howard Hodgkin, Grantchester Road, 1975Oil on wood panel, 124.5 x 145 cm, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through the Art Fund, 2006)

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Concentric lines are used in both pieces by Paolozzi and Hodgkin, generating a level of flatness upon the picture space. Hodgkin renders these circular forms with basic shades of black and white, whereas Paolozzi chooses a wide range of vibrant colours that cohere to the design’s overall tone.

Both artists use the visual language of architectural plans focusing predominantly on two-dimensional circular and rectangular forms. The works however differ stylistically, with Paolozzi adopting a more linear and restrained approach and Hodgkins using an expressive painterly style.

Where Paolozzi’s piece is entirely abstract, although some designs for the station were figurative, Hodgkin depicts a partial human figure in the bottom right corner in a three-dimensional space. This figure is a representation of Hogkin himself and provides a level of scale and human interest into a piece that could have been entierly abstract.

The two pieces are closely asociated with specific architectural locations, with Paolozzi’s piece commissioned to decorate a busy, yet unpersonal public space and Hodgkin’s representing a private home in Cambridge.

Paolozzi in Context

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1924 Born in Edinburgh, Scotland

1940-3 Attends evening classes at Edinburgh Collage of Art, training to become a commercial artist

1944 Briefly studied at St Martin’s School of Art

1945-7 Studied sculpture at Slade School of Art, then at Oxford

1947-9 Travels to Paris and meets artists such as Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti and Tristan Tzara

1949 Begins teaching Textile Design at Central School of Art and Design

1951 Marries Freda Elliot

1952 Delivers his seminal Bunk lecture at the ICA

1953 Starts producing small scale sculptures using the lost wax technique

1955 Collaborates with Nigel Henderson on Hammer Prints and produces textiles, wallpaper and ceramics

1956 Helps to produce a section for the exhibition This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Gallery, London

1956 Incorporates found objects into the surfaces of his bronze sculptures

1960 Twenty-two bronze sculptures of Paolozzi’s are exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and receives the award for Best Sculptor

1962-4 Produces a 12 minute film entitled A History of Nothing with filmmaker Denis Postle

1971 Has a major retrospective at Tate Gallery, London

1979 Granted a commission to decorate Tottenham Court Road Underground station

1979-80 Becomes a Royal Academician and is awarded Honorary Doctorates at the Royal College of Art and University of Glasgow

1988 Receives a knighthood from the Queen in the New Years Honours

1997 Unveiling of the bronze sculpture of Sir Isaac Newton that he produced for the British Library

2005 Dies in London, after a period of illness, aged 81.

Some Important dates in Eduardo Paolozzi’s Life

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Biography

Surrealism was a radical and intellectual artistic movement that emerged in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. Influenced particularly by the psychoanalytic writings of Sigmund Freud the group aimed to access the subconscious and translate it into art.

Dada was a European anarchistic movement that challenged the conventional traditions of art, particularly focusing on the notions of aesthetics, form and beauty. Moving away from traditional media of painting and sculpture, the group produced collages, ready-mades and other unorthodox forms of art.

Alberto Giacometti (1901–66) a Swiss artist who eventually settled in Paris and worked predominantly in sculpture. After the Second World War he was closely associated with the existentialist movement, here he produced bronze sculptures of tall and thin figures.

Art Brut in French literally translates to ‘Raw Art’. It was a term used by artist Jean Dubuffet to describe to work of artists who were not part of the recognised art world. Dubuffet was influenced by this kind of art which he perceived as being pure and reflective of the subconscious. Independent Group was an informal group of artists, architects, writers active in the 1950s who critiqued approaches to modernism and focused on popular culture in their work.

ICA Institute of Contemporary Arts, London is an artistic and cultural centre set up to encourage native contemporary arts.

Popular Culture is a broad term that refers to cultural activities or objects aimed to appeal to large masses of people.

Pop Art The term was first used by Independent Group member Laurence Alloway in 1958 to describe the style of work that emerged in Britain during the early 1950s. The movement

References and Connections

went on to flourish in America up until the 1970s with notable artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein being closely associated with it. The movement generally sought to blur the distinctions between ‘high art’ and popular culture, drawing on non-conventional sources for subject matter, based on everyday iconography.

Biomorphic is a term used to describe abstract art that is based on natural or organic forms instead of being geometric.

1. Renewing Surrealism: The Early Work of Eduardo Paolozzi

Bunk is the name of the lecture that Paolozzi delivered at the ICA in 1952. It also refers to a series of collages that the artist produced during the 1940s and 1950s. The term itself connotes throwaway and ‘worthless’ culture.

Avant-Garde literally translates to ‘advanced guard’ refers to the 20th century pioneers in the arts who challenged norms and assumptions.

Primitivism is the interest in ‘primitive’ art largely from Africa and the Pacific Islands. This style was adopted particularly the Fauvists and Cubists including Picasso and Matisse.

Iconography is the grouping of symbols or images that are closely associated to a particular person, idea or movement.

3. Metamorphosis of Rubbish

Lost wax technique is a process in making metal sculpture that is thought to have emerged as early as the 5th century B.C. The process involves the artist making a wax model of the desired work, encasing it in clay, and then melting the wax allowing it to pour out of the clay mould. A molten metal would then be poured into this clay mould. After the metal is cooled the clay is removed to reveal the complete metal sculpture.

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Existentialism is a philosophy that focuses primarily on ideas of human experience and personal existence. It was most popular and influential in artistic circles during the first half of the twentieth century.

Francis Bacon (1909-92) was an internationally renowned English painter. He is perhaps best known for his depictions of trapped and anguished human figures, which referenced Old Master paintings and were stylistically influenced by Expressionism and Surrealism.

4. The History of Nothing

Max Ernst (1891-1976) a German born artist who later became a leading member of the Surrealist movement. The artist produced collages during his career and paintings of dream-like and irrational scenarios.

5. Language Games: Prints and Sculpture in the 1960s

Screenprinting is a type of printmaking that grew popular as the result of British and American Pop Artists using the method during the 1960s. The process involves pressing ink through a screen on which stencils are laid over, in order to create an image.

6. Public Monuments and Late Works

William Blake (1757-1827) was a nonconformist English painter and poet who is now widely regarded as a visionary genius. Blake believed that the arts could provide a new perspective onto the world, which he felt had become ridden with doubt and uncertainty.

Paolozzi in Context

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an Austrian philosopher who was interested relationships between language, art and the world.

This is Tomorrow was an exhibition held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1956 led by members of the Independent Group. The show focused on modern life and drew on contemporary popular culture.

Henry Moore (1898-1986) was an English artist and arguably the best known British sculptor of the twentieth century. He experimented with various materials throughout his career, focusing particularly on interpretations of the human figure.

Compiled and written by:Katy Norris, Curatorial AssistantLouise Bristow, Freelance DesignerNatalie Franklin, Learning Programme Coordinatorn.franklin@pallant.org.uk, 01243 770839

Telephone 01243 774557info@pallant.org.ukwww.pallant.org.uk9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ