This plaster statuette is a maquette for the complete figure of A.30-2000 and represents Dame Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, D.B.E. (b. 1938) who was the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1988-1995. Elizabeth Esteve-Coll was appointed Keeper and Chief Librarian of the National Art Library from 1985, and was Director of the Museum from 1988 to 1995.

The Museum also has a maquette of the head and torso of this figure in plaster on a wooden base (Mus. no. A.2-2001) and a plaster maquette of the head (A.3-2001) together with a plaster maquette for the plinth and two for the base (Mus. no. A.6 to 8-2001).

Paolozzi (1924-2005) was a British sculptor, collagist, printmaker, film maker and writer. Born of Italian parents, he attended Edinburgh College of Art in 1943. After a brief military service, in 1944 he attended St Martin’s School of Art in London, and from 1945 to 1947 he studied sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1947 he moved to Paris. He remained there until 1949, meeting artists such as Arp, Braque, Brancusi, Giacometti, Jean Hélion, Léger and Tristan Tzara. He was attracted to Surrealist art and ideas and was also impressed by the art brut of Dubuffet. From 1949 to 1955 Paolozzi taught at the Central School of Art and Design in London. During the 1970s Paolozzi experimented with wood in a number of abstract relief works using an intricate network of geometric and biomorphic elements.