Works by the Scots artist Eduardo Paolozzi taken from his wife's private collection will go up for auction next week.

Born in Leith to Italian immigrant parents from near to Frosinone, his father, grandfather and uncle were all killed in the sinking of the Arondora Star which was deporting interned Italian and Germans to Canada in the Second World War when it was sunk by a Nazi submarine.

Paolozzi studied at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1943, briefly at Saint Martin's School of Art in 1944, and then at the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London from 1944 to 1947, after which he worked in Paris.

He also established the renowned company Hammer Prints Ltd, a design company creating textiles, ceramics and wallpaper. It was in the 1950s that he gained major public attention, with his screenprints and Art Brut sculpture.

(Image: free)

His signature works were life-like statuary works where the human form was deconstructed. By the 1960s his graphic work was pioneering, as he explored the limits of the medium of silkscreen.

In the 1970s audiences were drawn to Paolozzi’s creative images extracted from popular science books by German doctor and author Fritz Kahn (1888–1968).

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1989, his works are displayed at a number of prominent locations across Scotland.

Among them are ceiling panels and a window tapestry at Cleish Castle, Kinross-shire, Scotland, cast aluminium doors for the University of Glasgow’s Hunterian Gallery, The Manuscript of Monte Cassino, an open palm, a section of limb and a human foot, located at Leith Walk in Leith, Scotland.

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Now some of his works from the private collection of his late wife, Freda Paolozzi, will be auctioned by Dreweatts.

The items have been passed down through the family, and will go on sale for the first time.

Among the works being offered for auction is the project ‘The History of Nothing’ based on a 12 minute film in 1962 which constitutes changing sepia and black and white stills, with a random soundtrack of aircraft, locomotives, kabuki theatre, church bells and barking dogs.

Paolozzi used pages from German travel magazines, furniture magazines and exhibition catalogues saved over 10 years to create the collages.

Commenting on them he said: “I am interested above all, in investigating the golden ability of the artist to achieve a metamorphosis of quite extraordinary things into something wonderful and extraordinary that is neither nonsensical not morally edifying.”

Paolozzi's works have frequently been compared to those of American Pop Art pioneer, Andy Warhol. In January 2024 the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh marked the centenary of his birthday with a Paolozzi at 100 exhibition, featuring some of his most celebrated works.

You can view the items up for auction here.