Eduardo Paolozzi, who lived from 1924 to 2005, was a man of Leith, a Pop Art pioneer, and a one-off.
The son of an Italian-Scots family, his work encompassed sculpture, collage, prints, films and writing. He had an encyclopaedic variety of interests and an incredibly eclectic practise.
He was also not afraid of engaging in the public realm. His large sculptures can be seen, for example, in his home town, in Edinburgh. But he was also a big name in London, and he created a series of typically colourful mosaics for Underground stations in London, particularly Tottenham Court Road.
Now, sadly, some of these have been dismantled as part of Transport for London's huge Crossrail redevelopment of its network. TfL say that 95% of his work will remain in place - but if you lose five per cent of any work of art, it is surely significantly compromised.
The National Galleries of Scotland, which holds a very important archive of Paolozzi's work in Edinburgh, are right to express their dismay at the dismantling, and also in calling for the mosaics to not gather dust in storage, but be exhibited anew somewhere else. Perhaps they could find a new home in a public place in the country of his birth.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article