“Metalization of a Dream”
Eduardo Paolozzi
Eduardo Paolozzi: “Metalization of a Dream.” [Galerie Mikro, 1963 / 1969]. SIGNED edition of 100. Offset lithograph on matte paper. Original size: 33 × 23 in / 83.8 × 58.4 cm now trimmed to 27 x 23 in. to remove the text from the lower part of the poster: “Eduardo Paolozzi Complete Graphics Galerie Mikro Berlin 1 Berlin 12 Camerstrasse 1, 315865, February March 1969, Monday-Saturday, 12-7 pm.” The image is hand signed by the artist under the bottom right corner of the image. Edges with handling wear including a couple of short closed tears. Light soiling and faint creases, so a good example only.
27 x 23 inch Offset lithograph on matte paper signed in an edition of 100 copies printed on the occasion of Galerie Mikro’s 1969 exhibition Eduardo Paolozzi Complete Graphics. This signed copy is printed on a good quality heavy stock. The original lower third of the Poster reads “Eduardo Paolozzi Complete Graphics Galerie Mikro Berlin 1 Berlin 12 Camerstrasse 1, 315865, February March 1969, Monday-Saturday, 12-7 pm.” This text has been neatly trimmed for some reason I cannot fathom.
Eduardo Paolozzi (Scotland, 1924-2005) worked in sculpture, collage and print. Works such as the 1947 collage, I was a Rich Man’s Plaything, associate him with Pop Art. The Metallization of a Dream, a compilation of Paolozzi’s early work with monochrome and colour reproductions, was published in 1963. The title is taken from a statement that Paolozzi made in 1961 while teaching in Hamburg — “The search for arch-types to aid the metallisation of the dream.”
Each impression in the 1963 edition was printed using a differing combination of colours and is thus a unique image. Total issue of 40 impressions. ‘The Metalization of a Dream’ is one of the most important compositions of Paolozzi’s art in the early 1960’s. Impressions, each unique in the combination of the colours, are exceptionally rare.
Edouardo Paolozzi was a leading and ground-breaking artist in the British Surrealist movement in the period at the beginning of the 1950’s. Born in Scotland at Leith outside Edinburgh to Italian parents he began to study art at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1943, then moved to St. Martin’s in London and on to The Slade. In 1947 he went to Paris living there until 1949. It was a key period in the development of his ideas; he met Giacometti, Arp and Brancusi and their links to the post-war ‘Surrealist’ circle were deeply formative. Paolozzi became fascinated by ‘found objects’, as were his Parisian friends. Abandoned mechanical parts, wood and metal rubbish, as well as natural objects became the source of dreamlike structures both in three-dimensional ‘sculptures’ and in two-dimensional images. During the early 1950’s in London he became one of the founders of the ‘Independent Group’, a small but influential circle of artists who wanted to promote a focus on surreal and non-figurative themes for art. Paolozzi’s images were partially formed by collaging cuttings from random magazines as well as his ‘objects’. He also used the same techniques for images in the seminal book with the same title as this screenprint which he co-wrote with the author John Munday and printed at the Royal College of Art.
The leading screen-printer of the 1960’s, Chris Prater at Kelpra Studios in London, showed Paolozzi how to use collaged imagery in prints. ‘The Metalization of a Dream’, here, was one of his first and most important print works and it is an outstanding example of the inspiration of his greatest expressions of British Surrealism in the early 1960s.
Printed in chartreuse, dark green, bright yellow, orange, and brown, this surreal scene features a grey-walled room populated with strange machinery and a red chair. Paolozzi creates a multitude of textures, combining smooth, geometric forms and flat color, with photographic reproduction, effaced sketched lines, and woodcut. From the merger of peculiar, antiquated parts and futuristic technologies suggests the form of a green-eyed deity, whose head is framed by a yellow halo.