Paolozzi’s last work lovingly restored at Cass Sculpture Foundation

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London to Paris was commissioned by the Cass Sculpture Foundation in 2000.

As the last piece completed before the artist’s death in 2005, this monumental sculpture holds great importance to Cass Sculpture Foundation.

Over the last month an expert restoration team from Plowden Smith have painstakingly dismantled and cleaned the Iroko (African Teak) wood frame piece by piece, repairing any damage with authentic materials. Now, reassembled, the sculpture appears as it did when originally constructed.

Every year between the ages of 9 and 15, Eduardo Paolozzi travelled from Edinburgh to Milan, changing trains in London and Paris. He was fascinated by the relationship between man and the mechanized world of the 20th century, and made frequent studies of engines and modes of transport.

He described his past as a sequence of objects and, inspired by his memories of childhood railway journeys, elements of that sequence are organized into a sculptural collage in London to Paris.

The piece depicts a railway wagon loaded with the dismembered hands, feet and head of a mechanistic figure, along with a number of ambiguous, industrial parts. 

Cass Sculpture Foundation would like to thank the Paolozzi Foundation for co-funding such an important restoration. The Foundation looks forward to unveiling the newly restored work when it re-opens for the 2015 summer season in April next year, and plans to sell the piece to a suitable collection in order to raise new funds for the continued support of emerging contemporary sculpture.

Eduardo Paolozzi

Born in Edinburgh in 1924, Eduardo Paolozzi studied at Edinburgh School of Art and at Central St Martins. One of Britain’s most significant 20th-century artists, in the 1940s his dada and surrealist-inspired collages anticipated Pop art. In 1952 he was one of the founders of the Independent Group, challenging prevailing modernist ideas and the strict demarcation of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture.

His study of machines arguably reflected both delight in scientific advancement, and fear of technology’s destructive capabilities in the wake of nuclear stand-offs and the Vietnam War.

Complex yet accessible, Paolozzi’s work expresses the concerns, joys, fears and wonders of the modern age.

The Cass Sculpture Foundation

The Foundation was created by Wilfred and Jeannette Cass to support British sculpture. Read more about the Foundation in November’s Cassone

Cass Sculpture Foundation
Goodwood, Chichester
West Sussex PO18 0QP

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