LONDON.- Sims Reed Gallery announced their recent acquisition of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s highly revered estate of print editions. In Paolozzi’s first show solely devoted to his screenprints, his iconic 1960s Pop Art prints will be showcased alongside his later works, from 21st October – 13th November 2009.

Paolozzi (1924-2005) was active in producing sculpture, drawings, textiles, ceramics, jewelery and even the first architectural transformation of a London tube station (Tottenham Court Road), and his reputation as a Master of the screenprint is just as renowned.

Since childhood he collected disparate cuttings and pages from various magazines and comics, pasting them into scrapbooks alongside advertising slogans, creating early collages reflecting the schizophrenic quality of life. In the 1960s he excelled in the technique of screenprinting, utilizing it as the ideal medium in which to retain the Pop Art, collage-like effect for his collection of imagery.

Highlights in the exhibition include Paolozzi’s boxed sets of prints. In ‘Moonstrips Empire News’ (published 1967), Paolozzi creates a collage using fragments of text, with works by James Joyce & William Burroughs screenprinted and placed loose in the box alongside totally unrelated Pop images. This ‘free association of imagery’ is continued in the sequel box of prints entitled ‘General Dynamic Fun’ (1970), where literary references are abandoned in place of pictorial subjects drawn from film, magazines and commercial packaging.

The exhibition reflects the strong influence of America upon Paolozzi. The set of screenprints ‘Zero Energy Experimental Pile’ or ‘Z.E.E.P’ (1970), created after a visit to California, was gathered from publications including Playboy, Aviation Technical Magazine and National Geographic, and is one of his most colorful and dramatic works.

Another defining work on display is the ‘Bunk’ series, created in 1972 after original collages constructed with material collected between 1947-52. Produced as an edition of 100, these boxed sets of lithographs and screenprints are torn by hand and pasted onto backing sheets in replication of the original collages. After ‘Bunk’ Paolozzi’s visual emphasis shifted away from mass cultural imagery and instead he become fascinated with the graphic representation of sound, as shown by ‘Perpetuum Mobile’ (1975), which uses semiabstracted lines to suggest the flow of music and sound waves.