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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Severin Carrell Scotland editor

‘George’s machines’: museum devoted to George Wyllie opens on the Clyde

George Wyllie posing next to sculpture of  an eagle perched on a toilet roll
George Wyllie in 1997 with one his sculptures, an eagle perched on a toilet roll. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

He was the artist who sailed a paper boat past New York, set a straw locomotive on fire over the Clyde, and inserted a question mark into the word sculpture.

George Wyllie, a prolific, self-taught “social sculptor” who worked with steel, stone, wood and paper, used humour to make deeply serious criticisms of the climate crisis, capitalism and Britain’s industrial decline.

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