Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was born in Edinburgh of Italian parents. He studied in Edinburgh, and at the Slade in London, and worked in Paris 1947-50, where he was influenced by Klee and knew Giacometti. He was one of the main impulses behind the development of Pop Art in London in the mid-1950s and specialized in large, abstract, metal sculptures, and also figures in spindly metal.

Perhaps his best visited work is the mosaic patterned walls of the Tottenham Court Road tube station. There are works in London (Tate). He was knighted in 1989.

In 2001 Paolozzi suffered a near-fatal stroke. However, illness confined him to a wheelchair, and he died in a hospital in London in April 2005.

Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)