.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Although Paolozzi is perhaps best known as a sculptor, it was in fact collage that underpinned his creativity and ideas. He first started experimenting with collage as young child in Leith when he would collect cigarette cards of film stars, battleships and motorcars and assemble them into his scrap book- a source material he would continue to use throughout his life. His friend and fellow artist Richard Hamilton once commented to him:
‘It strikes me that all of your work comes out of the techniques of collage, the idea of collage, that you put things together … I mean, even in your most recent works you make separate elements and then assemble them- it’s Meccano work, whether it’s drawing or sticking bits of paper together or making bronzes by lost-was or by using constructive techniques’ (Exhibition catalogue, Eduardo Paolozzi: Collaging Culture, Pallant House, Chichester, 2013, p. 13).
His collages of mass media subjects shown at the ICA have earned him the title the 'Father of Pop', although he was known to say ‘I would rather be known as a Surrealist than a Pop artist' (Exhibition catalogue, Eduardo Paolozzi: Collaging Culture, Pallant House, Chichester, 2013, p. 13). Indeed, the Independent Group’s first event at the ICA in April 1952 has gained mythical status as one of the seminal moments in the development of Pop Art. During the event Paolozzi famously showed quick fire images of his collages executed from American adverts, popular magazines and science fiction, much like the source material in the present lot which uses a magazine advert for the 1947 historic drama Green Dolphin Street starring Van Heflin.
‘It strikes me that all of your work comes out of the techniques of collage, the idea of collage, that you put things together … I mean, even in your most recent works you make separate elements and then assemble them- it’s Meccano work, whether it’s drawing or sticking bits of paper together or making bronzes by lost-was or by using constructive techniques’ (Exhibition catalogue, Eduardo Paolozzi: Collaging Culture, Pallant House, Chichester, 2013, p. 13).
His collages of mass media subjects shown at the ICA have earned him the title the 'Father of Pop', although he was known to say ‘I would rather be known as a Surrealist than a Pop artist' (Exhibition catalogue, Eduardo Paolozzi: Collaging Culture, Pallant House, Chichester, 2013, p. 13). Indeed, the Independent Group’s first event at the ICA in April 1952 has gained mythical status as one of the seminal moments in the development of Pop Art. During the event Paolozzi famously showed quick fire images of his collages executed from American adverts, popular magazines and science fiction, much like the source material in the present lot which uses a magazine advert for the 1947 historic drama Green Dolphin Street starring Van Heflin.