Bark Cloth

Eduardo Paolozzi

c.1954

A screen-printed cotton textile in which Paolozzi repeats handlike, schematic motifs—clocks, gears, letters, and abstract signs—turning found mechanical and ethnographic imagery into a bark-cloth-like pattern to explore how everyday images become design.

You first notice a restless, high-contrast maze of black lines and symbols laid out in a foursquare repeat, where dense, gestural marks read at once like machine diagrams and hand-drawn ornament, creating a rhythmic, almost talkative surface.

Made in the 1950s, the piece bridges postwar collage and industrial design, anticipating Pop’s use of commonplace imagery and demonstrating how print and textile processes could bring modern art into domestic and commercial contexts.

Palette

Exhibitions

Eduardo Paolozzi

1964

Textiles U.S.A.

1956

Design Trends in Unit Furniture, Fabric and Tableware

1946

Textile Design

1945