#scupltor

April 22nd 2005 saw the death of the sculptor and artist Eduardo Paolozzi

Paolozzi’s Italian parents ran a small ice cream parlour in Leith, in June 1940, when Italy declared war Eduardo was interned (along with most other Italian men in Britain).During Eduardo’s three-month internment at Saughton prison his father, grandfather and uncle, who had also been detained, were among the 446 Italians who drowned when the ship carrying them to Canada, the Arandora Star, was sunk by a German U-boat.

There is little online about his internment and you wouldn’t have condemned him if he decided to leave Scotland after his release, the words of a Proclaimer’s song always springs to mind when I read about Eduardo Paolozzi, and other Scots=Italians:

Joseph D'Angelo dreams of the days

When Italian kids in the Grassmarket played

We burned out his shop when the boys went to war

But auld Joe's a big man and he forgave all

By the time Eduardo was released it was 1943 and he began attending Edinburgh College of Art before moving to London and feigned madness to secure his release from army duties in order that he could study sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1944 to 1947.

Paolozzi is widely considered to be one of the first Pop artists and created many collages including the famous ‘I was a rich man’s plaything’ in 1947, which was the first artwork to feature the word ‘Pop’ in it.

After a spell in Paris he returned to London and moved into a studio in Chelsea and by the 1950s was establishing himself as a surrealist artist through a series of screen-prints, pioneering the technique in which each print can have a separate colourway, predating Warhol’s famous prints of the same nature by four years.

In 1968 Paolozzi taught sculpture and ceramics at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked in Berlin from 1974, and was Professor at the Fachhochschule in Cologne from 1977 to 1981. He also later taught at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.

Paolozzi might have spent many years away from his home town of Edinburgh but didn’t forget it, he donated a great deal of work to the Scottish National Gallery, who have since displayed a reconstruction of his studio and a large body of his work in the Dean Gallery.

If you have wandered around Edinburgh and visited St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral you will have come across Eduardo Paolozzi statues, “Manuscript of Monte Cassino” which comprises a giant foot and matching hand and ankle. The work was a gift to the city by entrepreneur Tom Farmer, the work is found outside St Mary’s RC Cathedral, I like how the area there has three pieces of art, on the left at Picardy Place you can enjoy a statue of Sherlock Holmes, and on the right you have two giant Giraffes outside the Omni Centre made of scrap metal.

Eduardo Paolozzi suffered a serious stroke in 2001 and he died in a hospital in London in April 2005.

On March 7th 1924 Sculptor and artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was born in Leith, the eldest son of Italian immigrants, who ran an ice cream parlour.

Paolozzi had always shown a talent for drawing and pursued this by attending Edinburgh College of Art in 1943. He then moved to London and feigned madness to secure his release from army duties in order that he could study sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art.

Paolozzi is widely considered to be one of the first Pop artists and created many collages including the famous ‘I was a rich man’s plaything’ in 1947, which was the first artwork to feature the word ‘Pop’ in it.

Paolozzi began producing silk-screen prints in the 1950s. He pioneered the technique in which each print can have a separate colourway, predating Warhol’s famous prints of the same nature by four years.

When Italy declared war in 1940, his father was interned as an enemy alien. So was Paolozzi; he spent three months in Saughton jail, Edinburgh, while his father and grandfather were transported to Canada on the Arandora Star. The ship was sunk by a German U-Boat and they drowned.

From 1952-4 Paolozzi co-founded ‘The Independent Group’ in London, who paved the way for UK Pop Art. He was also one of the few British artists to become internationally recognised immediately after the war and certainly the most famous Scot.

  Paolozzi taught art at Hamburg College of Art where one of his students was fellow Scot, Stuart Sutcliffe, often quoted as "The Fifth Beatle" Sutcliffe died in the city in 1962, aged just 21.

He donated a great deal of work to the Scottish National Gallery, who have since displayed a reconstruction of his studio and a large body of his work in their Dean Gallery, The Gallery of Modern art.

Eduardo Paolozzi made numerous contributions to public art, designing and creating sculptures and mosaics for British and German spaces including the colourful mosaics in Tottenham Court Road Tube station, the cast iron sculpture ‘Piscator’ in Euston

  Square and of course the Manuscript of Monte Cassino comprises of a giant foot, seen in pic three,  and matching hand and ankle, which were returned to their original position outside St Mary's RC Cathedral at the end of York Place, Edinburgh, while tram works were being carried out last year.