LONDON, UK.- British artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, 81, died. He was born in 1924 in Leith, near Edinburgh, to Italian parents. He is regarded as the founder of the British pop art movement. He was best known for his mechanical sculptures. His statue of Sir Isaac Newton is located at the British Library’s piazza. A series of mosaics at the Tottenham Court Road Tube station in London is his most famous work. In 1979, he was made a member of the Royal Academy in 1979. In 1988 he was knighted.

He began his studies at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1943 and from 1944-47 he studied at the Slade School of Art in London. He then moved to Paris, where he met Giacometti and was influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism. In 1951, while he was professor at the Central School of Art, he won his first important sculptural commission - a fountain for the Festival of Britain. He later became professor at the St. Martin's School of Art and has also taught in Hamburg, Germany and at the University of California in Berkeley.