“Pop Goes the Easel” – Pauline Boty’s lost abstract paintings

In Ken Russell’s 1962 documentary “Pop Goes the Easel” commissioned by BBC Television for its Monitor series, the section he filmed with Pauline Boty included a number of her abstract paintings. This was her predominant style of painting at the time (along with the more figurative collaged works she was also creating) before she later developed her major Pop works. Very few of the former still survive.

At about 32:37 in the film, with a soundtrack of They All Laughed by Fred Astaire, Boty describes how she’d always enjoyed ’30s musicals and how the shapes and atmosphere she’d absorbed from them had come out in her paintings. Russell then shows the paintings in the sequence shown below, choosing on two occasions to pan across and then up what transpires to be the same painting.

As yet it hasn’t been possible to determine how many paintings these images represent, but it’s perhaps worth noting that at the conclusion of the film Boty can be seen working on a large abstract work with a considerable number stacked up behind, so they could quite feasibly be from four or more separate unidentified works that remain unseen outside the film.

Some surviving works are also interspersed below to both show how they appear in black and white and give a sense of the vibrant colour palettes used by Boty in other paintings from the period, along with some of the elements and geometric shapes that appeared in other works.

The sequence begins with stills of details of Untitled (red yellow blue abstract and Untitled (Landscape with rainbow):

The sequence then continues with a number of stills of the first unidentified abstract work:

The camera then pans across the same painting from left to right (please click or swipe gallery below to see the progression):

It then pans vertically up over the same work, seen below montaged together and rotated 90°.

A series of stills follow of the same work:

Boty’s 1962 painting Red Manoeuvre likewise contains geometric blocks of colour, combined with figurative work, possibly for the first time by her. Its central section is included in Pop Goes the Easel among the collages at about 29:34.

Further stills follow, including up to three further unidentified works, as well as a return to Untitled (red yellow blue abstract:

All images above © Estate of Pauline Boty

The sequence concludes with Boty emerging out of the image above from a starburst, formally dressed with white, top hat and white gloves and miming to Shirley Temple singing On the Good Ship Lollipop.

Boty can be seen in a black and white press image hanging another of her abstract works, entitled Painting at Congress House, headquarters of the TUC on 13 June 1962 here [link]

To see a slideshow of the collages shown by Boty in “Pop Goes the Easel” please visit: [link]

To see “Pop Goes the Easel” on BBC iPlayer, please visit: [link]