As part of their annual festival Wimbledon Bookfest have announced the a talk between Dr Sue Tate and Samira Ahmed at Rutherford Theatre, Wimbledon High School on Sunday 27 October at 3:00pm:
“An opportunity to find out more about one of the leading co-founders of the British Pop art movement, Pauline Boty.
Known as the Wimbledon Bardot, Pauline Boty was a student at Wimbledon School of Art. She smashed stereotypes and confronted issues well ahead of her time, but was not given the recognition she deserved. 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. Dr Sue will be in conversation with BBC broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed.”
‘The life of Boty? A Molotov fusion of possibility and loss.’ – Ali Smith”
Details Title: Pauline Boty: The Wimbledon Bardot Location: Rutherford Theatre at Wimbledon High School Date: Sunday 27 October 2024 Time: 3:00 pm Tickets are £15 and can be booked here [link]
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]
Pauline Boty, Untitled (Paris, dreaming woman and rose), 1961
Organised by The Stained Glass Museum, the online talk from Dr Sue Tate – Pauline Boty: Collage into Stained Glass – a Pop Art Approach – will take place on Thursday 2 November 2023 at 7pm (UK).
“Pauline Boty was one of the founders of British Pop; a talented and ambitious artist, and also a charismatic player on the swinging London scene. She produced a vibrant body of work in stained glass, collage and paint that both challenges and enriches Pop from a female perspective. This talk will focus on the stained glass work she made while at the Royal College of Art (including the piece held at the Ely Stained Glass Museum). It will explore the relationship between the mediums of collage and stained glass and place both in the wider context of Boty’s whole oeuvre and contribution to Pop.
Dr Sue Tate is a freelance art historian with a specific interest in women artists. She is the leading expert on Pauline Boty, British Pop Artist, 1938-66, having curated exhibitions of her oeuvre, lecturing on it in the UK, Europe and the USA, and publishing essays, book chapters and the definitive book on the artist: Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman.
This is an online event held via Zoom webinars. A Zoom link will be circulated in the week leading up to the event.” [information from The Stained Glass Museum website]
Details Date: 18 October 2023 Time: 7pm (UK) Price: General £6.50, Friends of the SGM £5.00
Further information, including how to buy tickets, is available here: [link]
The Stained Glass Museum, South Triforium, Ely Cathedral, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4DL (+44) 01353 660347
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
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]
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
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 