Eduardo Paolozzi

Pop Art pioneer Eduardo Paolozzi was a sculptor and printmaker whose large-scale public commissions transformed spaces including the British Library courtyard and the London Underground.

Born in Edinburgh to Italian parents, Paolozzi grew up reading American magazines and pasting pictures he liked into a scrapbook; a habit that would eventually inform some his most iconic works. In 1940, when Italy entered World War II in support of Germany, the teenage Paolozzi was interned as an enemy alien. His father and grandfather were put on a ship to Canada and drowned when it was targeted by a German U-boat.

Paolozzi was knighted in 1989 and by the end of his life was one of the country’s best-known artists. He died in April 2005 and left a major bequest to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. His works are now presented in a designated Paolozzi Studio in Modern Two, recreating the chaos of Paolozzi’s own workspaces.