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]
Marlborough will be showing Pauline Boty’s 1963 work Cuba Si at Frieze Masters 2022 in London from October 12–16.
The work is among a collection “celebrating the 1950s and 60s, one of the most prolific periods in the history of British art. Conceptualised in collaboration with writer and art critic Martin Gayford, whose 2018 publication Modernists and Mavericks provides a compelling account of the bustling London art scene from postwar Soho bohemia to the ‘Swinging 60s’, the presentation will highlight the plurality of artistic approaches at the time, with artists connected through personal relationships rather than distinct schools or manifestos.” [from the Marlborough Gallery London website].
Other artists exhibited by Marlborough at Frieze Masters will include Frank Auerbach, Gillian Ayres, Francis Bacon, Clive Barker, Frank Bowling, Reginald Butler, Patrick Caulfield, Maggi Hambling, Allen Jones, RB Kitaj, Leon Kossoff, Eduardo Paolozzi, Victor Pasmore, Joe Tilson and Euan Uglow.
By pure serendipity I recently came across Christopher Skelton-Davies and his remarkable Country House Obsession Instagram account @country_house_obsession
Christopher had commented in a recent post “I also have the useless skill of being able to identify a house by only seeing a very small part, like a window, which my family and friends regularly test me on whilst watching TV. A lot of people contact me with their personal connections and stories with some of the houses I visit and I love to hear those stories so please DM and share” and I wondered if paulineboty.org might avail itself of his expertise to try and ascertain whether the buildings and landscapes Boty painted in It’s a Man’s World I and II were real or conjured up from her imagination?
Sure enough Christopher promptly replied that firstly the building at the top of It’s a Man’s World I is based on the Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi [one of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy] in Northern Italy and that secondly the landscape at the bottom of It’s a Man’s World II shows the Pantheon at Stourhead in Wiltshire.
Please see below for images of Boty’s paintings followed by those of the locations.
Pauline Boty, It’s a Man’s World I, 1964Façade of the Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi. Photo by Paris Orlando via Wikimedia Commons
For further information on Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi please see here [link] and for visiting info here [link] [in Italian]
Further information on the individuals identified in the painting, including Marcel Proust, Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni is available here [link]
Pauline Boty, It’s a Man’s World II, 1964/5The Palladian bridge and Pantheon at Stourhead. Photo by Hamburg103a via Wikimedia Commons
For further information about Stourhead please see here [link] and for visiting info from the National Trust here [link]
Mono Media Films and Channel X have announced that they are currently in the process of conducting interviews for a forthcoming documentary on the life and work of Boty. They have previously produced programmes on, among others, Paul Weller, The Style Council and Peter Blake. You can see the original promotional video for “Pauline Boty: I Am The 60s” on Vimeo here [link] and keep up to date here via:
WITH LOVE TO JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO [detail], oil on canvas, 1962
Yesterday evening in Sotheby’s British Art: The Jubilee Auction Pauline Boty’s 1962 painting With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo sold for GBP 1,159,500 [GBP 950,000 plus Buyer’s Premium; Estimate GBP 500,000 – 800,000] achieving a new record price for one of her works.
This was previously held by her 1966 painting Bum, which sold at Christie’s on 22 November 2017 for GBP 632,750 [including Buyer’s Premium] with an estimate of GBP 200,000 – 300,000.
For more on yesterday’s sale and an extensive Catalogue Note on the work by Sue Tate [scroll right to the foot of the page] please see here: [link]
The Jubilee Arts Festival takes place from 28 May–15 June at Sotheby’s London and is described as follows: “Within the Jubilee Season, Sotheby’s will open its doors for an Arts Festival celebrating the alchemy of British creativity and stirring its spirit in the next generation. With exhibitions and events spanning the visual, performing, and literary, we will gather figures advancing and reinterpreting Britain’s treasured cultural legacy. Beyond unique opportunities to view artworks and jewellery loaned from some of the nation’s greatest private collections, we are partnering with RADA, Intelligence Squared and Fantasia Orchestra to deliver a programme of musical and dramatic performances, cultural and historical debates and talks with contemporary artists and creatives.”
On Monday13 Juneat1:00 pm in Pauline Boty, Pop Artist and Woman, Dr Sue Tate and Sotheby’s Frances Christie will discuss Boty’s life and work, including her important 1962 painting With Love to Jean Paul Belmondo which is due to be auctioned by Sotheby’s on 29th June [please see previous News item].
For further information on the festival please click here: [link]
On 29th June “British Art: The Jubilee Auction” at Sotheby’s in London will include Pauline Boty’s 1962 painting With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo, with an estimated sale price of 500,000 – 800,000 GBP.
WITH LOVE TO JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO, oil on canvas, 1962
Sotheby’s describe the sale as follows: “In June 2022, the world’s attention will turn to London as we pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, the longest serving monarch in UK history, admired and respected globally for her 70 years of service. To mark this significant moment, we will hold a major live-streamed Evening auction dedicated to the best of British Art. The sale will incorporate artists such as Gainsborough, Constable and Millais working in the 18th and 19th centuries to icons of the 20th century such as Barbara Hepworth and L.S. Lowry, and into the 21st century with artists such as Bridget Riley and Banksy.”
With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo will also be included in an exhibition at Sotheby’s in London from 28th May–15th June and 22nd–29th June. In the intervening time it will be on display in New York with other key works.
More information on the sale is available here: [link]
On 13th June Dr Sue Tate and Sotheby’s Frances Christie will be in conversation as part of the Jubilee Arts Festival – a programme of musical and dramatic performances, cultural and historical debates and talks with contemporary artists and creatives. Further details to follow soon here.
Details With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo by Pauline Boty Oil on canvas Signed BOTY, titled and dated 62 (on canvas overlap) Property from a French Private Collection
Unframed: 152.5 by 122cm.; 60 by 48¼in. Framed: 154 by 123.5cm.; 60½ by 48¾in. Executed in 1962.
Art that Made Us is a landmark eight-part series for BBC Two co-produced by the BBC and The Open University. Through 1,500 years and eight dramatic turning points, the series presents an alternative history of the British Isles, told through art.
Leading British creatives, including Simon Armitage, Anthony Gormley, Lubaina Himid, Maxine Peake and Michael Sheen join cultural historians to explore key cultural works that define each age.
Boty is represented in the final episode of the series, Brilliant Isles which “explores how the generation of artists who recorded the shocks of global war gave way in the 1950s and 1960s to an explosion of new voices from across the British Isles, reinventing the arts and creating a richer, more diverse culture. Young artists rebelled against the old establishment, kicking against the confines of class, sex, nation and race. Actress Lesley Sharp performs passages from Shelagh Delaney’s breakthrough play A Taste of Honey which brought the ordinary lives and unheard voices of working class women to a mainstream audience, while Chila Kumari Singh Burman explores the career of pop artist Pauline Boty.” [from the BBC website]
For further information including synopses, clips, broadcasting times and dates and link to iPlayer please see the BBC Programme page here [link]
From 2 October 2021 to 6 March 2022, “Amazons of Pop! Women artists, superheroines, icons 1961-1973” at Kunsthalle zu Kiel aims to address the diverse Pop art of a generation of women from Europe and North America who constitute the less-well-known side of the movement.
“Amazons of Pop! shows women who fight for their own emancipation with determination and actively champion political and social issues. They transgress boundaries in the art of their time, which was dominated by men, and test new and unusual materials such as plastic. Play with fictive characters, personalities and heroines from the big screen pervades the work of these artists, who demonstrate a great passion for experimentation, fantasy, intrepidness and a sense of strategy, conscious of the tense geopolitical and social circumstances of their time all the while. Amazons of Pop! features approximately 100 pieces from the fields of painting, installation, performance, sculpture and film and invites visitors to delve into the world of pop and a period of awakening: the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.” [from the Kunsthalle zu Kiel website]
The exhibition features: Evelyne Axell, Barbarella, Brigitte Bardot, Marion Baruch, Pauline Boty, Martine Canneel, Lourdes Castro, Judy Chicago, Chryssa, France Cristini, Christa Dichgans, Jane Fonda, Ruth Francken, Ángela García, Jann Haworth, Dorothy Iannone, Jodelle, Sister Corita Kent, Kiki Kogelnik, Kay Kurt, Nicola L., Ketty La Rocca, Milvia Maglione, Lucia Marcucci, Marie Menken, Marilyn Monroe, Isabel Oliver Cuevas, Yoko Ono, Ulrike Ottinger, Emma Peel, Pravda La Survireuse, Martha Rosler, Niki de Saint Phalle, Carolee Schneemann, Marjorie Strider, Sturtevant, Valentina Terechkova and May Wilson.
Organized by the MAMAC Nice in collaboration with Kunsthalle zu Kiel and Kunsthaus Graz, as well as support from Manifesto Expo.
Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Düsternbrooker Weg 1, 24105 Kiel, Germany Tel: +49 431 88057-56; Link to exhibition website: [link]
Pauline Boty 