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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi

4 of 11 portraits by John Deakin

John Deakin / Vogue © The Condé Nast Publications Ltd

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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi

by John Deakin
bromide print, 1952
11 7/8 in. x 10 1/4 in. (301 mm x 260 mm)
Purchased, 1985
Primary Collection
NPG P296

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • John Deakin (1912-1972), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 11 portraits, Sitter in 10 portraits.

This portraitback to top

John Deakin was a photographer who worked for Vogue during the early 1950s before he was fired because of his dissipated lifestyle. His life propping up the bar in the pubs and clubs of Soho enabled him, however, to take extraordinarily unflinching photographs of a wide group of artists, writers and other bohemians, including Francis Bacon, who used his photographs as the basis for paintings, Lucian Freud, Dylan Thomas and Louis MacNeice. This photograph of the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi in his youth is characteristic of Deakin's work: full frontal and raw, it has been taken without using any tricks of the photographer's trade and instead relies on the relationship between photographer and sitter, creating an image of dark-eyed impassivity.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 39
  • Rogers, Malcolm, Camera Portraits, 1989 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 October 1989 - 21 January 1990), p. 263 Read entry

    Eduardo Paolozzi, born in Scotland of Italian parents, is recognized as one of the leading British print-makers and sculptors. For him 'all human experience is one big collage', and his work is infused with a fascination with popular culture - he was a prominent member of the Pop Art movement - as well as modern industrial technology. A recent exhibition at the Gallery, based around new portrait sculptures of the architect Richard Rogers, however, conclusively revealed another strain in his work: his debt to, and veneration for, the academic tradition of Western art, and, in his own words, 'that form of teaching scathingly dismissed by more recent generations as Ecole des Beaux Arts'. This latest synthesis finds its most majestic expression in his monumental self-portrait bronze The Artist as Hephaestus (1987), which stands at 34-36 High Holborn, and which portrays the artist in his complex role as man, machine and myth. The Gallery owns a smaller version of this entitled Self-portrait with Strange Machine.

    John Deakin was from 1948 until his death a familiar Soho character, and, according to George Melly, 'a vicious little drunk', a liability to his friends, who included Francis Bacon and Daniel Farson. He was, nevertheless, an inspired photographer, whose work has an unflinching documentary quality, stripped of any trace of sentiment or humour. Until his behaviour became intolerable, he worked for Vogue, where his portrait of Paolozzi was published in March 1953. It shows the sculptor when a member of the Independent Group of young artists, architects and critics, 'who were more interested in discussing helicopters and proteins than prospects for the Royal Academy', and illustrates Deakin's understanding that a close-up, though it may well show more detail, also lends emphasis to broad sculptural forms.

  • Saumarez Smith, Charles, The National Portrait Gallery: An Illustrated Guide, 2000, p. 208
  • Saumarez Smith, Charles, The National Portrait Gallery, 1997, p. 208 Read entry

    John Deakin was a photographer who worked for Vogue during the early 1950s before he was fired because of his dissipated lifestyle; but his life propping up the bar in the pubs and clubs of Soho enabled him to take extraordinarily unflinching photographs of a wide group of artists, writers and other bohemians, including Francis Bacon, who used his photographs as the basis for paintings, Lucian Freud, Dylan Thomas and Louis MacNeice. This photograph of the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi in his youth is characteristic of Deakin's work: full frontal and raw, it has been taken without using any tricks of the photographer's trade and instead relies on the relationship between photographer and sitter, creating an image of dark-eyed impassivity.

  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 479

Events of 1952back to top

Current affairs

King George VI is found dead in his bed in Sandringham; he had been suffering from lung cancer. His daughter Elizabeth, who was in Kenya at the time, became Queen, the only monarch not to know the precise moment of her accession as her father was alone when he died. Elizabeth was crowned the following year.

Art and science

Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot is performed for the first time in Paris. The play belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd style, which influenced playwrights such as Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard.
Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opens in London. It is still going.

International

Mau Mau rebels in Kenya rise up against the British colonial administration. The rebellion was sparked by the growing poverty of the native farmers under the rule of white settlers and called for Kenyan independence. The violence of the rebels, who often murdered settlers and loyalists, was met by the indiscriminate suppression by the British Military, who executed hundreds of suspects.

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