This spectacular bronze sculpture by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was unveiled on the campus December 2000. The monumental seated figure, 'Faraday', is over five metres high and marks the entrance to the University from Vincent Drive. The sculpture was a gift to the University from the artist to mark last year's Centenary.
The sculpture is not, as the artist has said, 'of Faraday', but it is 'for Faraday', a work in homage to the great 19th century scientist whose discovery of the laws of electricity is but one of his world-shaping achievements. The lines of force at the figure's torso reflect the force fields present in nature - magnetism, electricity, light and sound waves - and are shown here connecting hand, torso and the world beyond.
An inscription running around the base of the sculpture comprises lines from T S Eliot's The Dry Salvages which have been chosen by the artist to reflect on the reasons young people come to University - to travel, listen, think and change.
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was given an Honorary Doctorate (DLitt) by the University in 1996.
Paolozzi was born in Leith in north Edinburgh, the eldest son of Italian immigrants. In June 1940, when Italy declared war on Britain, Paolozzi was interned (along with most other Italian men in Britain). During his three-month internment at Saughton prison his father, grandfather and uncle, who had also been detained, were among the 446 Italians who drowned when the ship carrying them to Canada, the Arandora Star, was sunk by a German U-Boat. He studied at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1943, briefly at the St Martin's School of Art in 1944, and then at the Slade School of Art in London from 1944 to 1947, after which he worked in Paris, France. While in Paris from 1947 - 1949, Paolozzi became acquainted with Alberto Giacometti, Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Georges Braque and Fernand Léger. This period became an important influence for his later work.
After Paris, he moved back to London eventually establishing his studio in Chelsea. The studio was a work-shop filled with hundreds of found objects, models, sculptures, materials, tools, toys and stacks of books. Paolozzi was interested in everything and would use a variety of objects and materials in his work, particularly his collages. Largely a surrealist, Paolozzi came to public attention in the 1950s by producing a range of striking screenprints and 'Art Brut' sculpture. Paolozzi was a founder of the Independent Group in 1952, which is regarded as the precursor to the mid 1950s British and late 1950s American Pop Art movements. His seminal 1947 collage I was a Rich Man's Plaything is considered the earliest standard bearer representing Pop Art. Although he always described his work as surrealist, he later became better known as a sculptor. Paolozzi is recognized for producing largely lifelike statuary works, but with rectilinear (often cubic) elements added or removed, or the human form deconstructed in a cubist manner. His works include:
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