Tag: Pop art

“Pauline Boty, Pop Artist and Woman” event on Monday in Sotheby’s Jubilee Arts Festival

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 Monday 13 June at 1:00 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]

Major work by Boty to be sold by Sotheby’s in Jubilee Auction

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.

New landmark eight-part BBC series includes work by Boty

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]

Boty drawing of Clive Goodwin sold at Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers

Earlier today a drawing by Boty of her husband Clive Goodwin sold for almost double its high estimate. The following image and details are all courtesy of Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers:

Pauline Boty. “The artist’s husband, Clive Goodwin, reclining”, c.1963. Image courtesy of Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers

Pauline Boty (1938-1966). The artist’s husband, Clive Goodwin, reclining, c.1963, pencil. 25 x 20 cm. Price realised GBP 5,500. Estimate GBP 2,000 – GBP 3,000.

Reclining with ease, Boty captures her husband Clive Goodwin in a moment of sleepy repose. The intimacy of the composition is primarily created through the simplicity of the line, which captures the figure with such confidence it speaks of familiarity. Moreover, the drawing’s cropped focus and its unusual angle of looking up Clive’s nostrils adds a playful and loving air to the piece.

Boty draws with a quick and assured line that identifies shapes within the scene, the jumper, belt, nostrils, lips and striped wallpaper in the background are all outlined. This technique of capturing form through simple line is reminiscent of the bold forms found in British Pop Art.
Boty was born in South London in 1938, she was the youngest of four children and grew up in a conservative Catholic family. In 1954, she won a scholarship to Wimbledon School of Art, which she accepted with the support of her mother (whose artistic ambitions had been thwarted by her parents).

Boty studied lithography and stained-glass making, but also painted in a distinctive style. She exhibited with the Young Contemporaries alongside Robyn Denny and Bridget Riley in both 1957 and 1959. Her developing friendships with Pop artists such as Hockney and Blake drew her further into this circle, and in 1961, she participated in a group show titled ‘Blake, Boty, Porter, Reeve’. Just two years later, she had her first solo show at the Grabowski Gallery, which was received with acclaim. After a brief stint in acting and on radio, Boty returned to painting. Her work became increasingly political with anti-Vietnam War and anti-patriarchy themes emerging.
After a whirlwind romance, she married Clive Goodwin in 1963, which is the same year this drawing was undertaken. Boty became pregnant with their first child in 1965, but early into the pregnancy, doctors discovered a cancerous tumour. Knowing that treatment would damage the foetus, Boty chose not to pursue this and she died aged just twenty-eight, only five months after the birth of her daughter.

In 2013, Boty received her first retrospective at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery; later travelled to Pallant House Gallery.

Provenance
Estate of Pauline Boty;
estate of Clive Goodwin;
Nicholas Grindley

PAULINE BOTY (1938-1966)
The artist’s husband, Clive Goodwin, reclining
Pencil on paper
25 x 20cm
Executed circa 1963

Talk on the legacy of Pauline Boty to be held at Gazelli Art House with Ali Smith and Sue Tate

Gazelli Art House, Dover Street, London

The talk will take place at Gazelli Art House on February 22nd, 6:00 – 8:00 pm (GMT) to accompany the “Oh, Marilyn!” exhibition currently being held at the gallery.

The panel discussion will draw on the history of art during the 60s wave of female emancipation in the UK and US and its impact on the arts, specifically the legacy of exhibiting artist Pauline Boty. Panellists include Ali Smith (CBE FRSL award-winning author, whose work Autumn features Boty as a central figure) and Dr Sue Tate (author of the biography Pauline Boty: Pop artist and Woman and co-curator of the associated retrospective which ran at both Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Pallant House Gallery in the UK).

You can join either at the gallery or online (audio only)
Click here to join at the gallery [limited places]: [link]
Click here to hear the talk live online: [link]

Further information about the exhibition is available here [link]

Gazelli Art House
39 Dover Street
London W1S 4NN
+44 207 491 8816

New installation “147 Women Dinner Party” includes work representing Pauline Boty

Installation view of “147 Women Dinner Party”. Image courtesy of Stash Gallery @Vout-o-Reenees

147 Women Dinner Party is an installation by Sophie Parkin and Mandee Gage about women who were celebrated in their day and should be better remembered for how they have been instrumental in making and changing Britain. Each of the 147 one-off, hand-made, hand-painted pieces (including plates, candlesticks, bowls, mugs, vases and more) is dedicated to one of the women.

Item no. 29 created for Pauline Boty with chosen Maxim “Dissolve Enmities”

“I had a revelation whilst at The Temple of Apollo, Delphi, Greece where the High Priestess Pythia foresaw and proclaimed. Why has nobody heard of Pythia? Pythia held the most powerful position of any woman in the Ancient World, wrote 147 Maxims for humans to abide by, carved into the stones around the temple. Some of these have been adopted by every religion, most have been ascribed to Socrates or Plato or other male philosophers, after Pythia. Why?

147 Maxims, 147 Women of Britain who should be better remembered, who were celebrated in their day. With time on my hands during the pandemic I thought this was the moment to find a ceramicist interested in making and decorating 147 pieces! I found Mandee Gage to collaborate with. Mandee has hand-made each piece – original and different – just like women. I have decorated half of them; all of them are dedicated to the women named on their bases. Mandee and I are stamped into each piece too. Women And Men, have made this country. This is what it means to be British.

147 Women became Dinner Party because we saw the installation laid out like a dinner table, traditionally a woman’s work, and to commemorate Judy Chicago’s piece, The Dinner Party, which has 39 guests with elaborate embroidered place settings that took scores of women to make. Mandee and I alone have done everything, including the book that accompanies the exhibition with potted bios, an image and of course each individual dedicated piece.” [by Sophie Parkin, from the Stash Gallery at Vout-O-Reenee’s website]

Sophie Parkin is an artist, writer, mother, broadcaster, journalist and businesswoman, co-owner of Vout-O-Reenees and The Stash Gallery. She has had 9 books published incl The Colony Room Club; a history of Soho, four one women shows and co-presenter/ producer of podcast @ShadowSpies.

Mandee Gage is a mixed media artist, teacher and ceramicist whose work refers to human rights, the environment and societies engagement with it. Gage ran Hybrid Art and Science group for 10 years. She has shown extensively in the UK and internationally from Oaxaca in Mexico, to the Venice Bienna

147 Women Dinner Party is on display at:
Stash Gallery at Vout-O-Reenee’s The Crypt, 30 Prescot St, London E1 8BB
10th February–26th February
The Beecroft Gallery Southend
5th March – 27th March
Broomhill Estate Gallery Devon
8th April

Further information, including opening times, is available at the gallery website here: [link]
A podcast explaining the origins of the exhibition is here: [link]

A book accompanying the exhibtion includes biographies of the 147 women that the works represent

“Amazons of Pop!” exhibition in Kiel includes Pauline Boty’s “Colour Her Gone”

Installation shot 2021 © Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Photo: Helmut Kunde

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]


“Bright Stars: Great Artists Who Died Too Young” with chapter on Pauline Boty is out now

Pauline Boty illustration by Anna Higgie

“Bright Stars: Great Artists Who Died Too Young” by Kate Bryan examines the lives and legacies of 30 great artists who died too young. Illustrations by Anna Higgie.

In the book’s concluding “Unfinished Stories” section a chapter entitled “Grand Dame of Pop art” is devoted to Pauline Boty, who is also referenced elsewhere throughout its pages.

From the Quarto Group website: “Some of the world’s greatest and most-loved artists died under the age of forty. But how did they turn relatively short careers into such long legacies? What drove them to create, against all the odds? And how can we use these stories to re-evaluate artists lost to the shadows, or whose legacies are not yet secured?
Most artists have decades to hone their craft, win over the critics and forge their reputation, but that’s not the case for the artists in this book. Art heavyweights Vincent van Gogh and Jean-Michel Basquiat have been mythologised by their early deaths, playing a key role in their posthumous fame. Others, such as Aubrey Beardsley and Noah Davis, were driven to create knowing their time was limited.
For some, premature death, compounded by gender and racial injustice, meant being left out of the history books – as was the case with Amrita Sher-Gil, Charlotte Salomon and Pauline Boty, now championed by Kate Bryan in this important re-appraisal. And, as Caravaggio and Vermeer’s stories show us, it can take centuries for forgotten artists to be given the recognition they truly deserve.
With each artist comes a unique and often surprising story about how lives full of talent and tragedy were turned into brilliant legacies that still influence and inspire us today. This is a celebration of talent so great it shines on.”

“Bright Stars: Great Artists Who Died Too Young” by Kate Bryan

Publisher: Frances Lincoln 
Format: Hardback 
ISBN: 9780711251731
Dimensions: 138 mm x 216 mm
Pages: 224
Illustrations: 60
Price: £16.99 / $22.99

Can you help locate Boty’s great lost work, “Scandal ’63”?

Pauline Boty by Michael Ward, 13 January 1964, on display at the National Portrait Gallery in 2020. © Michael Ward Archives / National Portrait Gallery, London

Friday’s Daily Telegraph included a piece by Jake Kerridge about how writer Tom Glover is asking its readers for their help in tracking down Boty’s great lost work Scandal ’63 which has remained unseen at large since its creation and only survives currently courtesy of photographs taken by Michael Ward. The large painting’s focus is Christine Keeler astride a chair against a vivid red background in a variation of the iconic shot taken by Boty’s friend Lewis Morley. Across the top are four of the male protagonists of the Profumo Affair: Aloysius ‘Lucky’ Gordon, John Profumo, Stephen Ward and Johnny Edgecombe.

As the work was commissioned Glover deems it unlikely to have been burned, thrown away or lost at the time and through the correspondence of gallerist Mateusz Grabowski (who featured Boty in exhibitions in 1963 and again in 1965) has ascertained that the surname of the individual who commissioned the work is Wright, but other than that has reached a dead end with his search.

The work can also be seen here in portraits of Boty by Michael Ward [link] and in an earlier incarnation by Lewis Morley [link]

The Daily Telegraph article is here [paywall] [link]

Should anyone reading this have any further information that they might like to share please contact info@paulineboty.org