Eduardo Paolozzi

In a portrait filmed when the artist was in his 70s, Eduardo Paolozzi recalls the days he spent in his father's ice-cream shop in Edinburgh and looks at how the popular culture he encountered in his youth informed his ideas about the nature of art.

Eduardo Paolozzi was interviewed on a number of occasions between 1993 and 1995 by art critic Frank Whitford for the British Library's Archival Sound Recordings. In these conversations, Paolozzi recalls with fondness the fascist-run boys' camp he went to from the age of nine during summer holidays in the 1930s. Camp guests included fascists from Spain and from Germany's Hitler Youth movement. Paolozzi remembers that he enjoyed the experience enormously, as it taught him independence and helped him assimilate the two cultures he was growing up in.