Signs of Death and Decay in the Sky

Provenance

The Patricia Fine Art Collection.

Literature

Tate Gallery (1984) The Tate Gallery 1980-82: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London: Tate Gallery Publications, another example from the edition illustrated.

Notes

Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi was a Scottish artist of Italian descent, born in Leith, Edinburgh. Paolozzi studied at Edinburgh College of Art, briefly at Saint Martin's School of Art, and then at the Slade School of Fine Art, before working in Paris from 1947 to 1949, where he met Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Jean Arp (1886-1996), Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Fernand Léger (1881-1955).

On his return to London he established a studio in Chelsea and, in 1952, co-founded the Independent Group, widely regarded as a precursor to the Pop Art movement. Paolozzi is considered one of the pioneers of British Pop Art. His practice spanned sculpture, printmaking, collage, ceramics, film and design, and included major public commissions such as the mosaics at Tottenham Court Road tube station and sculptures at Euston Station.

Paolozzi was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1968, elected a Royal Academician in 1979, made Her Majesty's Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland in 1986, and knighted in 1989. In 1994 he gave a substantial body of his work to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, later housed at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh. Paolozzi died in London in 2005.