L12142

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Lot 146
  • 146

Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A.

Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
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Description

  • Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A.
  • Trishula
  • cast, extruded and welded aluminum
  • height: 179cm., 70½in.; width: 284.5cm., 112in.; depth: 195.5cm., 77in.
  • Executed in 1966 and modified by the Artist in 1974 for the Wallingford commission, the present work is unique.

Provenance

Acquired by Sir Terence Conran for Habitat, Wallingford, 1974-1994

Exhibited

Wallingford, Habitat Playground, until 1994;
Wakefield, Bretton Hall, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Eduardo Paolozzi: A Birthday Celebration, August - October 1994, then on long-term loan until 2010.

Literature

Diane Kirkpatrick, Eduardo Paolozzi, Studio Vista, London, 1970, pp.70, 82;
Winfried Konnertz, Eduardo Paolozzi, Du Mont, Cologne, 1984, p.140, 142, 149;
Robin Spencer (ed.), Eduardo Paolozzi: Writings and Interviews, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, pp.304-5.

Condition

Structurally sound. The work bears a white and silver uneven painted wash. There are light scratches and abrasions about the surface, which also has pit marks inherent to the medium. There are a few isolated, minor areas of rust and other apparent signs of oxidation. The surface is dirty, particularly to the base, and will benefit from cleaning. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present lot.
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Catalogue Note

Paolozzi used  the six-sided lozenge shaped prefabricated unit, as in Suwasa and Trishula, for several sculptures from 1966 until 1974. It was also adapted in concrete on a larger scale for the playground sculpture in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, which he designed a year after the Wallingford playground. The lozenge shaped unit was particularly suitable for ‘wall’ sculptures in aluminium, like Trishula, the first of which, Pan Am, Mainspar, and Alapisti, which were all painted white, date from 1966 and 1967 (photographs  66/2779; 67/556-7; 67/740-1, Norman Cotterell, vols. 5 & 6, Paolozzi Collection, Tate Archive 9411). Diane Kirkpatrick, writing in 1970, describes sculpture like Suwasa and Trishula as ‘sculptural gesture-personnages’, made from prefabricated units which gave ‘him a new flexible vocabulary with which to build lyrical wall presences’.  Trishula appears to have been adapted from Alapisti, which may have been shown, untitled, in Paolozzi’s 1971 Tate Gallery exhibition (cat. no.53), but it is difficult to be certain based only on evidence of size. Paolozzi also made two further aluminium ‘wall’ sculptures in 1974, Ciboure and Fuentetodos, which were exhibited, outside and unpainted like the Wallingford sculpture, in the Paolozzi exhibition at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, in 1975 (cat. nos.74, 75). A second ‘wall’ sculpture can be glimpsed in one of the photographs of the Wallingford playground, but if it still exists its present whereabouts is not known.

Robin Spencer