In a wide-ranging interview art historian, curator and author Sue Tate, who has been so instrumental in bringing Boty’s life and work to a wider audience, discusses how she first encountered Pauline Boty, met with her friends and family members, discovered lost works and went on to curate a number of exhibitions.
She also gives her thoughts on the recent rise of awareness in Boty’s life and work and lasting legacy, tells us about some exciting new projects she’s currently involved with and much more!
Sue Tate with her copy of “Scene” magazine from November 1962 featuring Pauline Boty on the cover, interviewed by Derek Marlowe and photographed by Michael Seymour
“Pauline Boty: British Pop Art’s Sole Sister” by Marc Kristal, published by Frances Lincoln. Photo by Lewis Morley.
“Pauline Boty: British Pop Art’s Sole Sister” by Marc Kristal will be published by Frances Lincoln on 19th October.
From the publisher’s website: “Pauline Boty (1938 –1966) was a founding member of the British Pop Art movement and one of its very few women. She attended London’s Royal College of Art at a watershed moment when its students included David Hockney, Peter Blake, R.B. Kitaj and Allen Jones. Dying tragically young at the age of 28, she is now seen as central to British Pop Art and an icon of Sixties culture.
As well as her work as an artist, she appeared on the stage, TV and in film (including alongside Michael Caine in Alfie) and was a regular contributor on BBC radio. She was photographed by David Bailey and other society photographers and became a key player in 1960s London’s golden age.
Outspoken, provocative and charismatic, she refused to accept the oppositions between sexual woman and serious artist, between celebration and critique, between high and low culture. Observer and participant, feminist and hedonist, subject and object, Boty’s ‘double vision’ was decades ahead of its time, and prefigured a diversity of artists—everyone from Cindy Sherman to Madonna.
Having been largely forgotten after her death, her reputation has been growing steadily since the rediscovery and exhibition of her works in the early 1990s. As well as cropping up regularly in various books, documentaries and newspaper articles since then, she features as a central character in Ali Smith’s novel Autumn (2016) and one of her works sold for $1.4m at auction in June 2022.
After seeing her work at an auction in 2013, author Marc Kristal has spent almost ten years researching her life, interviewing the people who knew her and delving into archives and libraries.”
Contents page from the book with at left a portrait of Boty by Lewis Morley taken in September 1963.
Marc Kristal is an author, screenwriter, filmmaker, editor, and journalist. He has authored, co-written or contributed to more than forty books, notably Re:Crafted: Interpretations of Craft in Contemporary Architecture and Interiors (2010), Immaterial World: Transparency in Architecture (2011), and The New Old House: Historic and Modern Architecture Combined (2017). His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper, Metropolis, and Elle Décor.
He has also written films about contemporary and modern artists, notably Cindy Sherman and Mark Rothko. He is a two-time MacDowell fellow.
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Format: Hardback ISBN: 9780711287549 Dimensions: 9.65 x 7.48 in / 245 x 190 mm Pages: 256 Price: £25.00 / $40.00
Design for Friends of Pauline Boty’s blue plaque to be unveiled at Addison Avenue, London, on 1st JUly
The event has been organised by “Friends of Pauline Boty”, headed by writer Vinny Rawding, who is also currently making a documentary about Pauline Boty in conjunction with Mono Media Films and Channel X.
The Press Release from Rawding and Mono Media explains further:
“An audience will be gathering at 7A Addison Avenue, London W11 4QS from midday on Saturday July 1st for the 12.30pm unveiling of the plaque by Celia Birtwell CBE and Natalie Gibson MBE. The event has been organised by ‘Friends of Pauline Boty’ headed by writer Vinny Rawding, who is also currently making a documentary about Pauline Boty in conjunction with Mono Media Films and Channel X.
Pauline Boty (1938 – 1966) is one of the most important artists of the 20th Century and a trailblazer in women’s art and the burgeoning feminism movement of the 1960’s. Often cited as being the ‘forgotten artist’ of the British art scene of the 1960’s, Pauline Boty’s story has been clouded by her tragic early death from a rare form of lymphatic cancer at the age of 28 and the then subsequent relative obscurity compared to her peers. However, she was a key player in a lot of the changes that were happening in London in the first half of the most culturally important decade there has been on these shores. Within her art she analysed, subverted and skewered pop culture and major political events. Included within her paintings / collages are many of the most famous people and events of that time, such as Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Christine Keeler, the JFK assassination and the Cuba crisis amongst many others.
Asked why she did this, Boty replied that is because Pop Art is ‘Nostalgia for now…’
Mr. Rawding and Natalie Gibson, who is an executive producer on the documentary, are available for interview regarding the plaque and the documentary. For all interview requests or any further information, please contact Mark Baxter of Mono Media PR on 07967 290 150 / hello@monomediafilms.london”
Pauline Boty’s stained glass “Self Portrait”, c.1958 at the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by paulineboty.org
The National Portrait Gallery, closed for extensive refurbishment since 2020, has confirmed that Pauline Boty’s c.1958 stained glass work “Self Portrait” will be on display (in Room 28) when reopening to visitors on 22 June.
“A rare self-portrait in Boty’s oeuvre, this is a beautiful and assured portrait in stained glass, believed to date from 1958 when Boty was a student in the stained glass department at the Royal College of Art. There are conventional borders with floral motifs and quatrefoils. The work incorporates many of the creative techniques associated with the influential stained glass department of the Royal College of Art at that period, including layering, aciding of deep flashed layers, and expressive use of glass painting. The glass leading is experimental, with its eccentric use of arbitrary leads such as the piece cutting across the face of the figure.” [from the NPG’s website]
Detail of Pauline Boty’s stained glass “Self Portrait”, c.1958 at the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by paulineboty.org
The gallery also has a number of portraits of Boty by different photographers including Lewis Morley, Michael Ward and Michael Seymour, which can be viewed on their website at npg.org.uk
Pauline Boty, “Portrait of Derek Marlowe with Unknown Ladies”, oil on canvas, 1963
Subtitled A journey through painting and photography the exhibition runs from 13 June – 28 April 2024. The Tate website explains its subject further, as follows:
“The arrival of photography changed the course of painting forever. In this unique exhibition, we explore the dynamic relationship between the two mediums through some of the most iconic artworks of recent times.
From the expressive paintings of Pablo Picasso and Paula Rego, to striking photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto and Jeff Wall, you will see how these two distinct mediums have shaped each other over time.
You will also discover how artists have blurred the boundaries between painting and photography, creating new and exciting forms of art, such as Pauline Boty’s pop paintings, Andy Warhol’s silkscreen prints, the photorealist works of Gerhard Richter, or Andreas Gursky’s large-scale panoramic photographs.
In an open-ended conversation between some of the greatest painters and photographers of the modern era, we explore how the brush and the lens have been used to capture moments in time.
The exhibition is realised in collaboration with the YAGEO Foundation, Taiwan. The YAGEO Foundation was founded by Taiwanese collector, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Pierre Chen in 1999.”
As well as Boty, other artists and photographers featured in Capturing The Moment include Michael Armitage, Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz, Lisa Brice, Cecily Brown, Miriam Cahn, George Condo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, John Currin, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Jana Euler, Lucian Freud, Andreas Gursky, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Candida Höfer, Dorothea Lange, Louise Lawler, Marwan (Marwan Kassab-Bachi), Alice Neel, Paulina Olowska, Laura Owens, Pablo Picasso, Pushpamala N., Christina Quarles, Robert Rauschenberg, Paula Rego, Gerhard Richter, Wilhelm Sasnal, Joan Semmel, Lorna Simpson, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Salman Toor, Luc Tuymans, Jeff Wall and Andy Warhol
This is Dr. Sue Tate’s assessment of the exhibition: “Still time to catch Capturing the Moment at Tate Modern before it closes on April 28th and see how unquestionably Pauline Boty’s work holds its own in company with major figures Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. As you pass Richter’s Aunt Marianne, 1965, Boty’s Portrait of Derek Marlowe with Unknown Ladies will be in your sight line in the next room. With their shared use of monochrome photorealist reproduction of existing photographs yet very divergent meanings, they are in an equal dialogue. At the far end of the Pop art wall, Andy Warhol’s photo-screen printed Self Portrait echoes the Marlowe portrait. Boty, however, goes further than simple portrayal to offer a complex mix of gender critique (those poor unknown ladies) and object of desire. Wonderful to see Boty’s work taking and holding its due place in the pantheon of 20th century art.”
Further information, including how to book tickets, is available here: [link]
The screen grab below is of a new map containing more than 20 locations in London and its environs associated with Pauline Boty, including where she lived, worked and exhibited and sites shown in Pop Goes the Easel. The map itself with a list of the locations and their relevance below is available here [link]
(Please note: image above is a screen shot only of the map. Please visit the page itself to see all locations.)
Please note, some locations are approximate due to the markers being generated from the post codes of the areas in which they fall. We also welcome feedback including suggested locations to add/corrections required via the Contact form here [link]
(Please note: image above is a screen shot only of the map. Please visit the page itself to see all locations.)
The Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale starting at 6:00pm on 21 March includes Bum from 1966, and the next day on 22 March starting at 1:00pm the Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale includes two early works, Golden nude and Nude on the beach. All three can be viewed at 8 King St, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6QT from 14 March onwards.
The following images and details are all courtesy of Christie’s:
Details PAULINE BOTY (1938-1966) BUM Pencil, ink, watercolour, gouache and collage on paper 19 5/8 x 16 in. (50 x 40.6 cm) Executed in 1966
Provenance A gift from the artist to Kenneth Tynan, and by descent
Exhibited London, Gazelli Art House, “Silver Lining”, March–April 2019, exhibition not numbered
Estimate GBP 60,000 – GBP 80,000
Auction details LOT 1 Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale 21 MARCH 06:00 PM GMT | LIVE AUCTION 21948
Extract from Lot Essay “Gifted by the artist to Kenneth Tynan in 1966, the present work has remained in his family ever since. Unprecedented in Boty’s limited body of work, this collage is the only known study for a major painting and provides a tantalising insight into her working methods. Executed in the same vibrant colours as the oil painting (sold Christie’s London, 22 November 2017, lot 4), the layers of collage reveal the complexity behind this playful composition.
BUM, a splendid and mature work, was Boty’s very last painting and painted after a diagnosis for cancer that ended her life so prematurely, aged only 28 in 1966. In the face of death, it is a wonderfully vibrant piece painted in colours straight from the tube. Commissioned by Kenneth Tynan for his notorious, erotic cabaret Oh! Calcutta! it places her, to the very end, at the cutting edge of the 60s zeitgeist. The title is a play on the French ‘O, quel cul tu as’ (‘O, what an arse you have’) and in a letter to the impresario, William Donaldson, Tynan outlined a gamut of ideas for the show, one of which was ‘a pop art ballet designed by Pauline Boty, based on paintings that focus on the principal erogenous zones’. BUM, intended as the first of a series, took its cue from the punning title. Within a precisely executed proscenium arch the female bottom is exquisitely and sensuously painted, the flesh has a bloom like a peach and the work could be read as a sensuous celebration of life. Yet the meaning is surely more ambiguous. We have a reified body part, set above the demotic title, BUM, rawly proclaimed in chunky san-serif lettering and revealed ‘on stage’ inviting perhaps a slap or a caning as much as a caress. Certainly, any simple celebration of sexual pleasure has been superseded by something more complex and interesting.
We are very grateful to Dr Sue Tate, author of Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman, Wolverhampton, 2013, for preparing this catalogue entry.”
Details PAULINE BOTY (1938-1966) Golden nude Signed and dated ‘BOTY. 59’ (lower right) Oil on paper 23 1/2 x 17 1/4 in. (59.5 x 44 cm.) Painted in 1959
Provenance The artist, and by descent
Estimate GBP 30,000 – GBP 50,000
Auction details LOT 140 22 MARCH 01:00 PM GMT | LIVE AUCTION 21949 Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale
An essay on Boty entitled Pauline Boty: ‘She was beautiful, with this marvellous laugh: clever, very bright, very much the early feminist’ by Jessica Lack is also available here: [link]
Phaidon describe the new book as follows: “Great Women Painters is groundbreaking book that reveals a richer and more varied telling of the story of painting. Featuring more than 300 artists from around the world, it includes both well-known women painters from history and today’s most exciting rising stars.
Covering nearly 500 years of skill and innovation, this survey continues Phaidon’s celebrated The Art Book series and reveals and champions a more diverse history of art, showcasing recently discovered and newly appreciated work and artists throughout its more than 300 pages and images.
Other artists featured include: Hilma af Klint, Eileen Agar, Sofonisba Anguissola, Cecily Brown, Leonora Carrington, Mary Cassatt, Elaine de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, Jadé Fadojutimi, Helen Frankenthaler, Artemisia Gentileschi, Maggi Hambling, Carmen Herrera, Gwen John, Frida Kahlo, Tamara de Lempicka, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Plautilla Nelli, Georgia O’Keeffe, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Jenny Saville, Dana Schutz, Lee Krasner and Yayoi Kusama.”
“This is Tomorrow: Twentieth-century Britain and its Artists” by Michael Bird, published by Thames & Hudson
Pauline Boty features on the cover and within the new book This is Tomorrow: Twentieth-century Britain and its Artists by Michael Bird, published by Thames & Hudson.
The publisher’s website describes the book as “A compelling and lively history that examines the lives of British artists from the late-19th century to today” and has the following Overview:
“In This is Tomorrow Michael Bird takes a fresh look at the ‘long twentieth century’, from the closing years of Queen Victoria’s reign to the turn of the millennium, through the lens of the artists who lived and worked in this ever-changing Britain. Bird examines how the rhythms of change and adaptation in art became embedded in the collective consciousness of the nation and vividly evokes the personalities who populate and drive this story, looking beyond individual careers and historical moments to weave together interconnecting currents of change that flowed through London, Glasgow, Leeds, Cornwall, the Caribbean, New York, Moscow and Berlin.
From the American James McNeill Whistler’s defence of his new kind of modern art against the British art establishment in the latter half of the 19th century to the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s melting icebergs in London, he traverses the lives of the artists that have recorded, questioned and defined our times.
At the heart of this original book are the successive waves of displacement caused by global wars and persecution that conversely brought fresh ideas and new points of view to the British Isles; educational reforms opened new routes for young people from working-class backgrounds; movements of social change enabled the emergence of female artists and artists of colour; and the emergence of the mass media shaped modern modes of communication and culture. These are the ebbs and flows that Michael Bird teases out in this panoramic account of Britain and its artists in across the twentieth century.” . Further information is available here: [link]
About the author Michael Bird is a writer, broadcaster, and curator. His books include Artists’ Letters: Leonardo da Vinci to David Hockney, Studio Voices: Artand Life in 20th-Century Britain, and 100 Ideas That Changed Art. In addition, he has been the Goodison Fellow at the British Library, researching the Artists’ Lives archive.
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Format: Hardback [Ebook also available] ISBN 9780500024430 Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.3 cm Pages: 352 Illustrations: 81 Price: £30.00
Pauline Boty’s “Colour Her Gone”, 1962, at Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s “Pop Parade” exhibition. Photo by Bethany Williams.
A new permanent Pop art display entitled Pop Parade has been created at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, featuring Pauline Boty’s 1962 painting Colour Her Gone.
“The painting is a tribute to Marilyn Monroe and a firm favourite from the Gallery’s acclaimed Pop Art collection. The pioneering artist Pauline Boty was one of the founders of the British Pop Art movement and the only female painter within the British branch of the movement. Her work often featured individuals she admired and celebrated her self-assured femininity and female sexuality.
Her later paintings introduced more political themes and criticised the ‘man’s world’ in which she lived. Her art, together with her free-spirited lifestyle, has made her a herald of 1970s feminism.
Pop Parade is free to visit and is situated on the ground floor of the gallery.” [courtesy Wolverhampton Art Gallery Facebook page]
Pauline Boty 