In the latest episode of In Talks With: Adventures in visual culture by journalist Danielle Radojcin she discusses Boty with Mila Askarova, owner of Gazelli Art House and curator of the exhibition Pauline Boty: A Portrait; Vinny Rawding, film director of a new, soon to be released documentary about the artist; and the curator and art historian Sue Tate, author of a biography on Boty’s life.
From the podcast’s website: “Who was Pauline Boty? With her blonde, backcombed hairstyle and It Girl charm, this pioneer of Pop art embodied the 1960s scene in London, hanging with Bob Dylan, posing for David Bailey, and acting with Michael Caine in the film Alfie. As a new generation discovers her work, Danielle Radojcin and guests explore the tragically short life and burgeoning legacy of this extraordinary woman.
Born in 1938 in Croydon, Boty studied at The Royal Academy and became a part of the nascent British pop art movement, along with the likes of Peter Blake and Derek Boshier. In the words of the writer Michael Bracewell, ‘She seemed to embody the early days of the Pop Age.’
During her tragically short life, she produced an exciting and complex body of work, commenting on pop culture, feminism and so much of the era in which she lived, and much of which has been assembled for an exhibition at the Gazelli Art House in Mayfair, where this recording took place.”
The episode is available to listen to at Apple Podcasts here [link] and Simplecast here: [link]
Presented by art historian and curator, Katy Hessel, The Great Women Artists Podcast interviews artists on their career, or curators, writers, or general art lovers, on the female artist who means the most to them.
Episode 64: Ali Smith on Barbara Hepworth, Pauline Boty, Tacita Dean, and Lorenza Mazzetti
The current and final episode of the series features Katy Hessel speaking to author Ali Smith about the artists who act as the ‘spine’ for her recently-completed series of four stand-alone novels, grouped as the Seasonal Quartet:
“PAULINE BOTY – AUTUMN One of the most important artists to change the face of British Pop Art (as well as being an Actress, TV star, radio commentator, who read Proust) Pauline Boty EPITOMISED the possibilities of the modern Pop woman. She captured the glamour and vivacity of the 1960s, including those of music stars to film icons, think Marylin to Elvis, Boty worshipped the proliferation of imagery available in the post-War era.
BARBARA HEPWORTH – WINTER The Titan of British sculpture, Hepworth set up a studio in St Ives during World War II, and is hailed for her small-to-colossal hand-carved wooden sculptures. Cast in stone and bronze, sometimes embedded with strings or flashes of colour, and fluctuating between hard and soft, light and dark, round and straight, solid and hollow, the spirit of Hepworth’s work is at the spine of Spring and through Ali’s incredible writing makes us SEE differently.
TACITA DEAN – SPRING Filmmaker and artist, Dean, seven-metre-wide work The Montafon Letter is a vast chalk drawing on nine blackboards joined together, looms in Spring (and is also an exhibition visited by the protagonist Richard at the Royal Academy). Dean says in some ways the work about Brexit and about hope; “hope that the last avalanche will uncover us”. Much like Smith’s post-Brexit novels.
LORENZA MAZZETTI – SUMMER A new artist for me, this story of the Italian-born filmmaker who came of age in the 1960s is one of the most profound in the history of art. I am not going to tell you anything else other than listen to Ali tell her story.” [From The Great Women Artists Podcast website]
“One of the most important artists to change the face of British Pop Art (as well as being an Actress, TV star, radio commentator, a blonde who read Proust) Boty EPITOMISED the possibilities of the modern Pop woman. Known for capturing the glamour and vivacity of the 1960s, including those of music stars to film icons, think Marylin to Elvis, Boty worshipped the proliferation of imagery available in the post-War era.
“It’s almost like painting mythology, a present-day mythology – film stars, etc. The 20th-century gods and goddesses. People need them, and the myths that surround them, because their own lives are enriched by them. Pop art colours those myths.”
Dr Sue Tate is THE leading expert in Boty’s life and work. Without Sue’s work, conducting important primary research starting in the early 90s when Boty was barely known, in 1998 co-curating, for two London Galleries, the first solo show of Boty’s work in the UK for 35 years, In 2013 curating a major retrospective of Boty’s work at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, that toured to Pallant House Chichester and to Lodz, Poland, and authored the brilliant accompanying book Pauline Boty Pop Artist and Woman, we would not know about this brilliant, important and formative artist.” [From The Great Women Artists Podcast website]
Pauline Boty 