Lot 171
SIR EDUARDO PAOLOZZI R.A., H.R.S.A. (BRITISH 1924-2005) §
MOTH - FROM THE TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD STATION MOSAIC, c.1983
Auction: Day Two | Lots 100 to 527 | Fri 31 October from 10am
Description
glass mosaic tiles mounted on plywood
Dimensions
150.5 x 105.5 x 3.5cm (59 ¼in x 41 ½in x 1/14in)
Provenance
Gifted to Duncan Lamb, the architect who oversaw the installation of the murals, and thence by descent to the present owner.
Footnote
We are grateful to Toby Treves of The Paolozzi Foundation for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.
‘Eduardo and I visited the glass works in Udine, Italy to discuss the project and I returned a number of times to check on progress. Eduardo’s drawings were projected onto large sheets of paper using an epidiascope and the mosaic then stuck to the paper back to front, so that when offered up to the wall they would be the right way round.
When the first stage of the work - the mosaics for the Central Line - arrived, the length was fine, but they were about a metre too high, so they had to be adapted on site. Work could only be carried out from midnight until about 4am and Eduardo didn't want to go out at night to amend them, so he left it to me to make it all fit. I would do a normal day at work, as an architect for London Transport, then wander around the city until midnight, before going on site to do a kind of cut and paste make the mosaic fit the space, catching the first train back home around 6am.
I've always called the piece ‘butterfly/moth’ because I always think of it as a butterfly, with its bright colouring, but it was in fact a moth - to depict the night life of Soho and the environs of Tottenham Court Road.'
Duncan Lamb