Pauline Boty, costume for the Bishop, The Balcony, 1961. Gouache on paper. On display in Stage & Screen: Designs from the James L Gordon Collection at the Hunterian Art Gallery. Photo by Colin Malcolm
This free exhibition includes three costumes (for the Bishop, the Judge and the General) and a set design from 1961, all created by Boty for an unrealised production of Jean Genet’s “The Balcony” and runs until 25 February 2024. The University of Glasgow website [location of the Hunterian Art Gallery] has further information, as follows:
“Stage and Screen features works on paper from the James L Gordon Collection, on show in Scotland for the first time. Covering designs for both theatre and film, this visually engaging exhibition offers a rare glimpse into this unique personal collection of rich and diverse material.
With a few earlier exceptions, the James L Gordon collection comprises set and costume designs for British theatre productions from about 1900 to the 1990s, and British and American designs for film and television from the 1930s onwards. The designs are almost all two-dimensional: drawings, watercolours, paintings and collages, rather than three-dimensional models. The range of material is immense, embracing everything from Shakespeare to pantomime, opera to ballet, Hammer horror to Hollywood musicals and Doctor Who to the Eurovision Song Contest.
Spanning the whole of the 20th century, Stage and Screen includes works by leading artists such as Cecil Beaton and David Hockney and designs for famous productions including Oh! Calcutta!, Hair, Cats, Little Shop of Horrors and The Slab Boys. The exhibition also features costume designs for stars such as Rudolf Nureyev, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Grace Jones.
Presented chronologically, by decade, the hundreds of works on display cover a wide range of social and cultural issues, highlighting the history of how they have been represented in the theatre and on screen.
As well as set designs by artists such as Patrick Caulfield, Edward Burra, Paul Nash and Rex Whistler, the exhibition also features costume designs for performers and musicians, often identifiable by the inscriptions or drawings, including Liza Minelli, Elton John, The Jackson Five, Mick Jagger and The Beatles.”
Pauline Boty, costume for the Judge and the General, The Balcony, 1961. Gouache on paper. On display in Stage & Screen: Designs from the James L Gordon Collection at the Hunterian Art Gallery. Photo by Colin Malcolm
Location Hunterian Art Gallery University of Glasgow 82 Hillhead St Glasgow G12 8QQ The Hunterian is part of the University of Glasgow. The Museums, Art Gallery and The Mackintosh House are located on the Gilmorehill campus, 3km west of Glasgow city centre
Gallery Stage and Screen is in Gallery 2, located upstairs. The space is fully accessible via lift
Opening times Tuesday to Sunday 10am–5pm. Closed Monday. Please check the Opening Hours page before visting, here [link]
Further information, including a downloadable list of works, is available here: [link]
Stage & Screen: Designs from the James L Gordon Collection at the Hunterian Art Gallery. Photo by Colin Malcolm
With much thanks to Colin Malcolm for both providing the information about the exhibition and sharing his photos from the event.
Monica Vitti with Heart, 1963, shown on display in “Pauline Boty: a portrait” at Gazelli Art House
The exhibition has understandably received a considerable amount of favourable reviews and reassessments of Pauline Boty’s life and work so, as promised, we’ve put together a selection of representative quotes with links to the original articles (please note however – some require a subscription to access or are behind a paywall).
“Art historians now broadly agree that Boty’s work stands alongside the best Pop art of the era – and had she not died at the age of only 28, many believe she was on course to become one of the great artists of her generation.” “‘Bold, outrageous’: forgotten star of swinging 60s pop art celebrated with London solo show”, Rob Walker, The Observer, 26 November 2023 [link]
“Boty’s paintings revel in the pleasures of consumerism, in the experience of fandom and infatuation, but with a gaze invested with tenderness towards the reciprocal desires of men and women – in sharp contrast to the ironic fetishisation of women found in other Pop art. This rare show brings together key canvases such as Colour Her Gone and With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo with earlier collages and works in stained-glass.” “The Top 10 Exhibitions to See in December 2023”, J.J. Charlesworth, ArtReview, 30 November 2023 [link]
“To describe Pauline Boty as a ‘pioneer’ is a bit like calling someone a ‘one-off’. It’s not an adequate description of her in any way.” “Life in colour: Annie Nightingale remembers Pop art painter Pauline Boty”, The Spectator, 2 December 2023 [link]
“There are only 25 recorded Pop period (1962-66) paintings by Pauline Boty, who encapsulated London’s Swinging Sixties with her blonde bob, black eyeliner and colourful, politically attuned art – and five of them are in a show at Gazelli Art House (until February 24).” “Pauline Boty in the Limelight”, Melanie Girlis, Financial Times, 14 December 2023 [link]
“A similar desire to explore femininity and attitudes to female bodies can be found in the work of Pauline Boty. A bold new show at Gazelli Art House – the first posthumous solo exhibition in a decade – platforms the life and work of the British writer, painter and actress who co-founded the 1960s Pop art movement. Pauline Boty: A Portrait digs into Boty’s life and work, showcasing her sensual and erotic works that defiantly reasserted a female perspective, parodying classic tropes associated with femininity and depicting male idols as sexualised pinups.” “A year of culture”, Will Moffitt, Mayfair Times, 1 January 2024 [link]
“‘Boty was a very diverse artist, incorporating collage, lithography, stained glass, painting, and film. Each time, regardless of medium, she would bring in new elements—be it references to pop culture imagery or Victoriana,’ said Gazelli Art House’s Mila Askarova. ‘I think that willingness and ability to experiment, yet still retain a distinctive style, separated her into a league of her own.’” “Pauline Boty’s Sex-Positive Pop Art Is Having a Moment”, Cath Pound, Artsy, 3 January 2024 [link]
“Boty’s transformation from David Frost’s ‘super bird’ to radical Pop artist with unusual ambitions is complete.” “Pauline Boty: Pop art’s only female icon laid bare”, Waldemar Januszczak, Sunday Times, 7 January 2024 [link]
“Boty’s art sizzled with wit, wry humour and social commentary. Her practice was diverse, ranging from stained glass to irreverent paintings and collages of icons such as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, as well as explorations of race riots in America and the Cuban missile crisis. She subverted expectations, painting men like sex symbols and giving her female subjects sexual freedom.” “Pauline Boty: the dazzling 1960s artist finally having her moment”, Ella Alexander, Harper’s Bazaar, 16 January 2024 [link]
Exhibitiondetails Pauline Boty: A Portrait Exhibition dates: 1 December 2023 — 24 February, 2024
Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN Tel: (+44) 01353 660347
Further information, including additional reviews, is available at the Gazelli Art House website here: [link]
“Untitled (Pauline Boty In Her Studio with ‘July 26’), 1963” by Michael Ward. Vintage photographic print. Ed. 4/25. Courtesy of Elizabeth Seal-Ward for the Michael Ward Archive & Gazelli Art House
In association with the exhibition “Pauline Boty: a portrait” currently showing at Gazelli Art House the gallery has commissioned a series of four C-prints by Michael Ward of Pauline Boty alongside some of her key Pop art paintings in editions of only 25 per image.
Notably, the works shown include Scandal 63 (the only surviving record of her painting based on Lewis Morley’s portrait of Christine Keeler, last seen in the 1960s) and With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo (an early version of which appeared on the cover of Men Only in 1963 and sold for £1,159,500 at auction in 2022). Pauline Boty was also photographed by, among others, David Bailey, Lewis Morley, Michael Seymour and Roger Mayne and Ward’s images undoubtedly number amongst her best and most well-known portraits
In addition there are a small number of vintage silver gelatin prints by Ward available. Again, of note among these are Boty photographed alongside her lost work July 26, last seen in the 1968 BBC documentary The New Radicals.
“Untitled (‘Men Only’ cover shot), 1963/2023” by Michael Ward. Coloured C-print. Edition of 25. Courtesy of Elizabeth Seal-Ward for the Michael Ward Archive & Gazelli Art House
MICHAEL WARD (B. 1929; UK – D. 2011) Michael Ward rose to prominence as a photographer for the Evening Standard’s Show Page, capturing the emerging talents of his era, including luminaries such as Maggie Smith, Barbara Windsor, Jill Ireland, Jackie Collins, and Julie Christie. In the mid-1960s, Ward joined the Sunday Times where, alongside Bryan Wharton, he became one of the newspaper’s standout photographers. Their collaborative efforts extended beyond portraiture, to current events and news, including the Naples earthquake, the 1968 Paris riots, and the 1974 Turkish-Cypriot war. Ward’s extensive archive has been featured in exhibitions across Britain, with over fifty portraits spanning three decades housed in the National Portrait Gallery [biographical info courtesy of the Gazelli Art House website].
Further information For further information and high resolution previews of the images please click here: [link] Clicking on a thumbnail in each case provides detailed specifications, a scrollable preview and an Enquire button to request further information, including price and availability.
All images Copyright The Artist
Installation shot of the four C-prints by Michael Ward on display in the exhibition “Pauline Boty: a portrait”. The prints are displayed in front of a recreation of part of one of the collaged walls created by Boty. Image courtesy of Gazelli Art House
The section on Boty concludes the programme and starts at approximately 29:10. The BBC website describes the contents of this edition as follows:
“The extraordinary work of the artist Pauline Boty (1938 – 1966) is explored by the curator of a new exhibition, Mila Askarova, and the art historian Lynda Nead.
Paddington director Paul King returns with Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet in the title role. He talks with Samira about exploring the backstory of Willy Wonka and Roald Dahl’s surprising vision for fiction’s greatest confectioner.
Front Row rounds up the best non-fiction books of 2023 with Caroline Sanderson – non-fiction books editor for The Bookseller and chair of judges for the Baillie Gifford Prize in 2022, Stephanie Merritt – critic and novelist, and John Mitchinson – cofounder of Unbound, the independent crowdfunding publisher and co-presenter of literary podcast, Backlisted.” . The programme is available to listen to here [link]
Details Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Paula McGrath Released On: 6 Dec 2023 Available for over a year
Iconic Images Chelsea have announced the following as the latest in their series of Park Walk Talks: “Artist, feminist, pioneer, provocateur – Pauline Boty was many things in her too-short life. Born into a middle-class Catholic family in 1938, she won a scholarship to the Wimbledon School of Art, attending despite her conservative father’s disapproval. A degree at the Royal College of Art followed, then the post-college years in which Boty became the only established female member of the Pop art movement of the 1960s.
After her untimely death in 1966 at the age of only 28, Boty’s paintings were stored away in a barn on her brother’s farm, and she was largely forgotten for nearly 30 years. In the 1990s her work was rediscovered, provoking new interest in her contribution to Pop art and leading to her inclusion in several group exhibitions as well as a major solo retrospective – in other words, a rewriting of Pop art history.
Join us on Thursday December 7th at the Iconic Images Gallery Chelsea for the latest in our series of Park Walk Talks, where the collector and researcher Christopher Gregory will be exploring Pauline Boty’s brief but fascinating life and legacy. A longtime aficionado of 1960s pop culture, Gregory first encountered Boty’s work in 2011, contributing to her newly published biography and establishing the authorised website paulineboty.org.”
Details Title: Park Walk Talks: Pauline Boty: Her Life and Legacy Location: Iconic Images Chelsea, 13A Park Walk, London SW10 0AJ Date: 7 December 2023 Time: 7:00 pm Tickets are free and can be booked via eventbrite here [link]
Header image shows Pauline Boty with her great lost work “Scandal ’63” photographed by Michael Ward.
Pauline Boty: A Portrait previews 30 November, 6–8PM (GMT) with the Exhibition opening 1December 2023–24 February, 2024 at Gazelli Art House, London.
Colour Her Gone; by Pauline Boty, 1962, oil on canvas
The following information is from the gallery’s website:
“Gazelli Art House celebrates the life and legacy of trailblazing British painter Pauline Boty (1938-1966) in her first posthumous solo exhibition in a decade.
Pauline Boty: A Portrait presents a remarkable opportunity to view Boty’s coveted paintings in unison, alongside a plethora of profound, archival materials. Marking the artist’s third showing at Gazelli Art House, this exhibition continues the gallery’s explorations of Boty’s pivotal and enduring artistic impact. Pauline Boty: A Portrait marks over twenty years since Pauline Boty – The Only Blonde in the World (The Mayor Gallery and Whitford Fine Art, London), and ten years since Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman (Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK, touring to Pallant House Gallery) curated by Boty specialist and author, Dr Sue Tate. Pauline Boty: A Portrait will be accompanied by a catalogue and talk.
A prominent figure in the British Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Boty waylaid convention with her fearless exploration of femininity, societal norms, politics, and popular culture. Eschewed the esteem of her male contemporaries, and customarily eclipsed by preoccupations with her beauty and the tragedy of her untimely passing, Boty’s artworks are today venerated as climacteric within the cultural discourse surrounding the period.
In the pivotal early work Self Portrait (c.1955), Boty’s instinctual painterly ability delivers an immediate, and human, intensity. Elsewhere, Untitled (Landscape with Rainbow) (1961), seen in Ken Russell’s Young British Artists documentary Pop Goes the Easel (1962), is a rare abstract created concurrently with Boty’s graduation thesis on the rendering of dreams. Here, candied forms drift about an ochre and white expanse with all the turbulence of the ‘swinging’ sixties and the social unrest on the horizon. These bold, early abstracts are, Prof. David Alan Mellor states, ‘inflected by the Cohen brothers and the emblematics of Allen Jones’s rereadings of Dealauny and Kandinsky’.
The influence that film, alongside popular music, played upon Boty’s practice is evidenced in works such as Colour Her Gone (1962), With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo (1962), and Monica Vitti with Heart (1963). Dr. Sue Tate notes that, in press interviews the artist spoke of a “nostalgia for now” for “present day mythology”. As with myth, Boty’s paintings are laced with symbolism, where a rose may become an unapologetic allegory for female sexuality. These paintings demonstrate the abstract strewn apart and montaged with the figurative, in what would become Boty’s distinctive, painted collage technique.
From popular culture to political musings, in Cuba Si (1963) – named for Chris Marker’s 1961 film of the same name – Boty delivers a complex critique on a Postwar U.S. that denotes the artist’s “ongoing interest in Cuba”, says Author Marc Kristal. When we consider the term ‘Political Pop’ did not emerge until the 1980s, it would be by no means overzealous to suggest Boty was ahead of her time.
Yet, in many ways, Boty was so of her time, so attuned to the charge of change, and perhaps that energy is what resonates still so powerfully today. Boty’s appearances across stage, screen, and radio – including Alfie (1966), and Frank Hilton’s Day of the Prince (1963) at the Royal Court Theatre (for which Boty also designed the programme) – are here exemplified in video footage. In archival photographs within the exhibition we glimpse aspects of the artist’s vivid personality: Boty lies nude atop a chaise-longue, sits contemplative with two black cats, and mimics the actions of her painted subjects.
The significance of this exhibition is not only to draw attention to the radical artworks and ideas of Boty, and the new wave of feminism she undoubtedly heralded, but also to credit the efforts of recent years to rightfully reinstate Boty within the art historical canon.
Pauline Boty signed photo, by John Aston, 1962.
About the Artist Pauline Boty (1938-1966) was born in South London, and embarked on her artistic journey with a scholarship to Wimbledon School of Art in 1954. In 1958, she continued her studies at the Royal College of Art.
Boty’s diverse body of work, encompassing paintings, collages, and stained glass, often depicted individuals she deeply admired, celebrated her unapologetic femininity, and explored themes of female sexuality. As her career progressed, her paintings began to incorporate more overt or implicit critiques of the male-dominated societal norms she confronted, thus shedding light on the inequalities of the “man’s world” in which she navigated.
Boty’s artwork is held in the collections of: The National Portrait Gallery, London; Tate Britain, London; Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton; Stained Glass Museum, Ely; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; Muzeum Sztuki Łódź, Portugal; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisboa; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington.
About the Gallery Founded in 2010 by Mila Askarova, Gazelli Art House, London brings a fresh perspective to Mayfair – through championing artists from all corners of the globe. Focusing on artists at the height of their practice, the gallery showcases their work through a diverse programme of exhibitions and events. Along with its sister site in Baku, Gazelli Art House specialises in promoting art from Azerbaijan and its neighbours to introduce a greater understanding of the rich linguistic, religious and historical ties that connect these areas to international audiences. In 2015, the gallery further expanded to support artists working in digital art through its online platform: GAZELL.iO, comprising an online Residency programme, NFT drops and collaborations, a dedicated Project Space holding monthly exhibitions, and a permanently installed VR Library.
Acknowledgements For their generosity and insight, Gazelli Art House would like to thank the Estate of Pauline Boty, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, and other lenders to the exhibition who wish to remain anonymous.”
paulineboty.org is delighted and honoured to be contributing to this exhibition through the loan of a number of pieces of ephemera.
Exhibitiondetails Pauline Boty: A Portrait Preview: 30 November 2023 Time: 6–8pm (UK) Exhibition dates: 1 December 2023 — 24 February, 2024
Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN Tel: (+44) 01353 660347
Further information is available at the Gazelli Art House website here: [link]
This new section consists of selected quotes from the 25-year old Pauline Boty courtesy of Nell Dunn and Silver Press from Dunn’s book Talking to Women, originally published by MacGibbon and Kee in 1965. This edition has since been followed in 2018 by a new, expanded version from Silver Press with an Introduction by Ali Smith and new Afterword by Nell Dunn.
The Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale starting at 1:00pm on 19 October includes Pauline Boty’s Still life with paint brushes from c. 1959-61. The work can be viewed at 8 King St, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6QT from 15 October.
The following image and details are all courtesy of Christie’s:
Details PAULINE BOTY (1938-1966) Still life with paint brushes pencil, gouache and metallic paint on card 15 ¾ x 19 ¾ in. (40.5 x 52.7 cm.) Executed circa 1959-61
Provenance Purchased by Joe Boyd at the 1993 exhibition. His sale; Christie’s, South Kensington, 12 December 2014, lot 97, where purchased by the present owner
Literature S. Tate, Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman, Wolverhampton, 2013, pp. 28, 128, pl. 7.
Exhibited London, Mayor Gallery, Pauline Boty, May – June 1993, no. 8. London, Whitford Fine Art and Mayor Gallery, Pauline Boty: The Only Blond in the World, November – December 1998, exhibition not numbered. Wolverhampton, Art Gallery, Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman, June – November 2013, exhibition not numbered
Estimate GBP 25,000 – GBP 35,000
Auction details LOT 127 Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale 19 OCT 1PM BST | LIVE AUCTION 21951
Note We are very grateful to Dr Sue Tate for her assistance in cataloguing this lot
Pauline Boty, Untitled (Paris, dreaming woman and rose), 1961
Organised by The Stained Glass Museum, the online talk from Dr Sue Tate – Pauline Boty: Collage into Stained Glass – a Pop Art Approach – will take place on Thursday 2 November 2023 at 7pm (UK).
“Pauline Boty was one of the founders of British Pop; a talented and ambitious artist, and also a charismatic player on the swinging London scene. She produced a vibrant body of work in stained glass, collage and paint that both challenges and enriches Pop from a female perspective. This talk will focus on the stained glass work she made while at the Royal College of Art (including the piece held at the Ely Stained Glass Museum). It will explore the relationship between the mediums of collage and stained glass and place both in the wider context of Boty’s whole oeuvre and contribution to Pop.
Dr Sue Tate is a freelance art historian with a specific interest in women artists. She is the leading expert on Pauline Boty, British Pop Artist, 1938-66, having curated exhibitions of her oeuvre, lecturing on it in the UK, Europe and the USA, and publishing essays, book chapters and the definitive book on the artist: Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman.
This is an online event held via Zoom webinars. A Zoom link will be circulated in the week leading up to the event.” [information from The Stained Glass Museum website]
Details Date: 18 October 2023 Time: 7pm (UK) Price: General £6.50, Friends of the SGM £5.00
Further information, including how to buy tickets, is available here: [link]
The Stained Glass Museum, South Triforium, Ely Cathedral, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4DL (+44) 01353 660347
The talk by Professor Lynda Nead will be held as part of the Mellon Lecture Series British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain at the Gorvy Lecture Theatre, V&A Museum, from 6:30 – 7:30 pm on 8 November 2023.
The Paul Mellon Centre website has the following information on the series: “These lectures look at post-war Britain through changing styles of femininity that expressed many of the key concerns of the nation in the twenty-five years that followed the end of the Second World War. In the 1950s, American glamour was exported to a war-torn Britain, part of a larger passage of commodities that crossed the Atlantic in this period. In the process, however, something important happened, blonde became British, Marilyn Monroe became Diana Dors. The lectures capture this process as it evolved through the 1950s and 1960s and was subjected to the changing definitions of class, social aspiration and desire that shaped the post-war nation.
Drawing on a wide range of visual media and forms including painting, film, photography, advertising and fashion the lectures offer a new history of the art and culture of post-war Britain.
In the 1960s a new kind of blonde femininity emerged. Part of a new regional and class configuration and a changing moral and sexual environment, Sixties Blonde was described as natural, energetic, impulsive and self-sufficient; an urban figure who embodied modernity and was a staple of fashion photography and sixties cinema. The work of British pop artist, Pauline Boty, expresses many of the tensions for young women in the 1960s, the possibilities and constraints, liberation and collusion. This lecture considers Boty’s work and her image in the context of shifts in morality and sexuality in the period and the broader culture of film and photography in these years.
The Paul Mellon lectures, which are named in honour of the philanthropist and collector of British art, Paul Mellon (1907-1999), were inaugurated in 1994 when Professor Francis Haskell delivered the first series at the Gallery in London. The model for the series was the Andrew W. Mellon lectures, established in 1949 in honour of Paul Mellon’s father, the founder of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The lectures are biennial, given by a distinguished historian of British art.
About the speaker Lynda Nead is Pevsner Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London. She has published widely on a range of art historical subjects and particularly on the history of British visual culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her most recent book is The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain (Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press). She has a number of advisory roles in national art museums and galleries and is a Trustee of the Holburne Museum and of Campaign for the Arts. She is currently writing a book called British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain.”
Details Ticket price: £5 per lecture Location: Gorvy Lecture Theatre, V&A Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum,, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL Date: 8 November 2023 Time: 6:30 – 7:30 pm Tickets can be booked via eventbrite here [link]
Image credit: Pauline Boty by Michael Seymour, 1962.
Pauline Boty 