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© Trustees of the Paolozzi Foundation, Licensed by DACS 2023.

MARINE COMPOSITION 1950

Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 – 2005)

Details

Dimension
35 X 53.5 CM
Media
LITHOGRAPH
Accession number
P642

Summary

This was Paolozzi’s first print and was published by the Redfern Gallery in London. The lithograph was made using lithographic ‘transfer’ paper and was a technique much favoured by the pioneering print publishers of the early 1950s to encourage British artists to take up the then little used medium of colour lithography. Enabling artists to draw on specially prepared carbon paper in their own studios, the images would then be transferred onto lithographic stones or plates and printed by professional printers in London or Paris. Although working in this way overcame the problem of having to draw directly on the stones in reverse in the less than ideal conditions of a print workshop, it also meant the artist was divorced from the actual printing process and the realisation of the finished print.

The sea shore had provided subject matter for Paolozzi in early drawings, sculptures and reliefs made both as a student and as a young artist based in Paris. The linear quality of Marine Compositionis also closely related to the spatial, skeletal form of the artist’s free standing sculpture The Cage (Arts Council Collection), commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Eduardo Paolozzi Artificial Horizons and Eccentric Ladders Works on Paper 1946-1995, The British Council 1996

Glossary

  • Lithography

    Lithography means, literally, stone drawing. In addition to fine grain lithographic stones, metal plates can also be used for lithography. The method relies on the fact that grease repels water. An image is drawn in a greasy medium onto the stone or plate, which is then dampened with water. Greasy printing ink rolled onto that surface will adhere to the design but be repelled by the damp area. The inked image is transferred to the paper via a press. For large editions, the grease is chemically fixed to the stone, and gum arabic, which repels any further grease marks but does not repel water, is applied to the rest of the surface. For colour lithography the artist uses a separate stone or plate for each colour required.

  • Medium

    Refers to either the material used to create a work of art, craft or design, i.e. oil, bronze, earthenware, silk; or the technique employed i.e. collage, etching, carving. In painting the medium refers to the binder for the pigment, e.g. oil, egg, acrylic dispersion. The plural form is media.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.