This
is an intriguing stand-alone screenprint from 1973. Entitled ‘Quadrum Dax’, it was printed by
Kelpra in an edition of 100. Dimensions
are 86cms x 64cms.
I
see it as a very satisfying hybrid, recalling the mechanistic, painted
sculptures of the early Sixties, the pattern componentry of As Is When and Universal Electronic Vacuum and looking forward to the more ethereal
graphics style that would peak with Paolozzi’s prints of the late 70s. It is an exemplar of what Paolozzi was talking
about in his letter published in The Guardian, 6 March 1967:
By
employing engineering methods the iconography of the sculptor can be extended
far beyond the normal range of the traditionally trained and studio bound
artist and the high technical standards of industrial commercial process,
including screen printing, can provide a complexity and range of possibility
impossible by normal art-craft printing methods1.
As
to colour, I regard it as a halfway house between the use of high contrast,
saturated hues – often of the primaries – in the Sixties’ print series and the
much more muted schemes of the Kottbusserdam
Pictures and Turkish Music series (1974), and Calcium
Light Night series (1974-6). The composition
anticipates the four-block structure of the woodcut series of 1975, For Charles
Rennie Mackintosh.
The
rendition of pattern and the geometry is much more clinical than in any other
Paolozzi print I have seen.
I
suspect that Paolozzi selected the title mainly on the basis of his liking for
the sound and/or look of quirky words and phrases. It is not a notable Latin expression. Quadrum
obviously refers to ‘four’ and Dax can
‘mean’ anything from a proper name to the German Stock Exchange.
The
print does not feature in the relatively comprehensive Tate on-line catalogue
and is missing from the lists in Kelpra
Studio: The Rose and Chris Prater Gift. Artists’ Prints 1961-1980, unless it represents one of
untitled items, DP4886 or DP4887.
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1
The full text of this letter is reproduced in Eduardo Paolozzi Writings and Interviews, edited by Robin Spencer,
Oxford University Press, 2000
