Eduardo Paolozzi
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Spotlight on the restoration EDUARDO As many of the original tiles as possible, installed in 1984, The glass mosaics of have been reused. Where required, new tiles of the same Eduardo Paolozzi at colour, produced using the same process as the originals, Tottenham Court Road have been commissioned to replace any damaged since are an iconic part of they were installed at the station or where disturbed the station’s identity The famous mosaic piece from the former Oxford Street by the works. – and one of the most entrance has been conserved, and with the support of expert PAOLOZZI spectacular examples restorers and art handlers, has been carefully relocated of post-war public art. to a new site in the lower level of the station. MAP The mosaics have been cleaned and repaired throughout the station. Those who worked on the renovation include craftsmen who worked on the original installation with Paolozzi in the 1980s. A major modernisation of the station was required to manage the 150,000 daily customers – in advance Throughout the modernisation of Elizabeth line services joining the station in 2018, work, London Underground when the number is expected to rise to 200,000. has worked closely with the Paolozzi Foundation, historians The former arches over and design and conservation the escalators could professionals, to protect and not remain in place when renovate the mosaics, and the ticket hall ceiling find a fitting home for the was removed. The mosaic arch pieces. fragments from these As part of the complex arches have been carefully restoration work, the transported to Edinburgh site was surveyed and College of Art, the world- Find out more about the restoration photographed, noting renowned art institution in of this iconic artwork on our website any areas of damage that Paolozzi’s home city, where art.tfl.gov.uk has occurred over the he studied in 1943 and later Twitter: @aotulondon past 30 years. became a visiting professor. Instagram: @artontheunderground An artist for urban life I’ve always thought that Tottenham Court Road begins below the ground rather than when you get to the top.1 A towering god of fire, a disembodied head, the robotic His mosaics works at Tottenham Court Road station human form, swirling mosaic cogs, pistons, cows and are one of the city’s greatest works of public art, chickens. Eduardo Paolozzi’s influence on London is capturing two dimensional collaged forms in the profound. His prolific output across the city encapsulates glimmer of glass mosaic. The work draws the many of the concepts the artist explored throughout commuter from Underground platforms up to the his career; consumerism, industrial design, science cacophony of Soho and the West End. fiction and urban futures. Paolozzi revolutionised the British art scene, with a rejection of mid-twentieth North, South, East and West century modernism and a counter trajectory that led Across the city, Eduardo Paolozzi expands on his to Pop. And so he challenged ideas on public art. powerful themes of what art can achieve in public In works we can see in London, Paolozzi encompasses space. His goal was ‘a kind of living art that’s in the the maker, the thinker, the everyman, but he did so streets’. The bulky shape of ‘Piscator’, 1981, features with an underlying awareness of the limits of human an intricate relief at its top, not only to be viewed thought, and the weakness of the body, no match for by the commuters of Euston station, but also by the the robotic alternative. office workers in the surrounding buildings. The British Paolozzi In London Library’s ‘Newton After Blake’, 1994 – 1997, presides over a public forum for readers, researchers, workers Born in Leith, Edinburgh in 1924, Paolozzi’s close and passers-by alike. relationship to London began when he studied at the Always, I try to make a bridge, to contact people Slade School of Art in 1945. Paolozzi returned to London on a massive scale.2 in 1949 and started teaching textile design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He was at the forefront Across London Paolozzi’s public works build a bridge of London’s contemporary art scene, exhibiting at the between place and our relationship to it, challenging inaugural exhibition of the newly opened Institute the individual’s role in the urban structures of the city. of Contemporary Arts (ICA), ‘1950: Aspects of British Art’, as well as the influential 1956 exhibition ‘This The Whitechapel Gallery exhibition is Tomorrow’ at the Whitechapel Gallery. From 16 February to 14 May 2017, a groundbreaking As Paolozzi’s reputation grew, he took on a number exhibition of Paolozzi’s work will be on view at the of major commissions in Germany and the UK in the Whitechapel Gallery, revealing the full depth and 1970s. He was asked by London Regional Transport surprising scope of this artist. This map is a guide to create a work for Tottenham Court Road station to the extraordinary work that can be seen across in 1979, reputedly after one of the project team saw the city, at any time, by everyone. his work for a wall mural in West Berlin. Paolozzi Underground Eleanor Pinfield Head of Art on the Underground At Tottenham Court Road station, Paolozzi reimagined the station as a huge expanse of colour, movement, Daniel F. Herrmann figure and shape, picking up images of popular Eisler Curator & Head of Curatorial Studies, culture and everyday life. Whitechapel Gallery Aldgate East station Eduardo Paolozzi Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery 16 February – 14 May 2017 There were grunts, sighs and incredulous laughter as a heavy hand moved magazine clippings across the screen. A young Scottish artist called Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 – 2005) had arrived at London’s ICA from Paris, with a suitcase of American magazines. Full colour advertisements for women’s underwear, tinned tuna and Cadillacs were among the attractions for the artists and architects who gathered to see his slide show in 1952 and who were tired of post-war austerity. They were to become the Independent Group and, inspired by the rambunctious Paolozzi, they inaugurated British Pop Art. His revolutionary ‘Bunk Lecture’ is recreated in this four decade retrospective exhibition. Paolozzi’s powerful sculptures, prints and collages challenged mid-century British modernism by drawing on mass culture, science fiction and industrial design. His rough post war bronzes rejected naturalistic abstraction, embracing robotic totems of the nuclear age; his dazzling screen-prints revolutionised printmaking; he transformed Tottenham Court Road station with his vibrant mosaics; and challenged curatorial practice with his surreal show of artefacts at the Museum of Mankind. Paolozzi’s remarkable story unfolds with his surrealist inspired collages and bronzes of the 1940s; exuberant assemblage sculptures and screen prints of the 1960s and 1970s; the disturbing fractured heads of the 1980s; and his prolific plaster production of the 1990s. Also featuring vibrant textile designs and animated films, lost sculptures and forgotten drawings, this exhibition reveals Paolozzi as dynamic, irreverent and fiercely contemporary. ‘Wittgenstein in New York’, 1965, Screen print, 76 × 53.5 cm Tickets from £11.95 / £9.50 concessions ‘Conjectures to Identity’, 1963 – 64, Screen print, 76 × 53.5 cm #Paolozzi Tottenham Court Road station The mosaics reflect the artist’s interpretation of the Tottenham Court Road mosaics, 1986 local area and his wider interest in mechanisation – cogs, pistons and wheels whirr through the station. Mosaics Cameras, saxophones and electronics reference the Tottenham Court Road station, London music and technical shops of Soho. Egyptian images were inspired by the nearby British Museum, and Commissioned in 1979 and completed in 1986, butterflies are included as the artist’s recollection Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics at Tottenham Court of long-disappeared Turkish baths. Road station are one of the most spectacular examples of post-war public art. The glass mosaics The mosaics at Tottenham Court Road station are link interconnecting spaces and feature prominently an enduring legacy to the work of Paolozzi, and on the Northern line and Central line platforms. the growing history of public artwork commissions for London Underground. Euston station German artist and theatre director Erwin Piscator ‘Piscator’, 1981 (1893 – 1966) was a contemporary of radical playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956), both known for creating Cast iron, 3.1 × 4.6 × 1.8 m dramas about politics and social reality of ordinary Euston station forecourt, London lives, with innovative stage designs. All over London it is possible to find monuments As well as being viewed from the pavement, the cast that commemorate the lives of illustrious figures iron shape of Piscator was designed to be seen by the from the past. However, instead of celebrating occupants of the tall buildings that surround it. the achievements of an important general or From this angle the fragmented cubes of its surface establishment politician, Paolozzi disrupted the loosely resemble a human head. tradition by naming his monument after a much more unusual character. King’s Cross St. Pancras station ‘Newton After Blake’, 1994 – 1997 Bronze, 3.7 m high British Library forecourt, London ‘Newton After Blake’ was unveiled in front of the newly built British Library building in 1997. Paolozzi developed the work after a studio visit from the library’s architect, Colin St John Wilson (1922 – 2007), who became interested in the artist’s maquette models for sculptures. Paolozzi borrowed the pose of the leaning seated figure from a watercolour of Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727) by William Blake (1757 – 1827) in the Tate Gallery collection. Appropriately for its context, the sculpture’s two subjects refer to two vast areas of human knowledge; the scientific field exemplified by Newton and the artistic field by Blake.