A Day in 'Swinging' London: PAULINE BOTY
The work of a near-forgotten pop artist of the early 1960’s, Pauline Boty, is on show at Gazelli Art House, London. Boty was a prominent member of London’s art scene.
Colour Her Gone, 1962, Oil on canvas, 120 x120 cm, Courtesy of Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
There is a wonderful scene in Ken Russell’s 1962 film ‘Pop Goes the Easel’, a BBC television documentary focusing on the lives of four pop artists working in London, namely Peter Blake, Derek Boshier, Peter Phillips and Pauline Boty, where all four were filmed at a party dancing to The Twist. That dance surfaced in the late 1950’s. It’s a marker for the emergence of an explosion of youth-culture in music, sport, art, and fashion in the 1960’s, as post-war baby boomers ignored the Establishment. Pauline Boty was a prominent part of the British Pop Art movement, her career straddling the late fifties to mid-sixties. She died of cancer aged 28 in 1966 so one can only imagine what she may have gone on to accomplish. Her artwork is held in many collections including Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian, Washington DC, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, and Museu Coleçáo Berardo, Lisbon, and more.
Pauline Boty achieved much in her short life. In London she won a scholarship to Wimbledon School of Art in 1954. It led to a place at the Royal College Art in 1958. Her peer group was David Hockney, Peter Blake, R.B. Kitaj and Allen Jones. At first, she studied the practice of stained glass design – there is a beautiful piece, Untitled (Architectural detail, Edwardian woman and Danish Blue), c.1960 (stained glass with beading) in the Gazelli Art House show. (See image - a detail below.) Boty dabbled in film too, acting several small roles, and on stage. Meanwhile her art was exhibited to positive reviews. The latest display of around twenty works relate to Boty’s interest in popular culture, film and politics. It includes the early Self-Portrait, 1955. Her interest in politics, surfaces in Cuba Si, 1963 which related to a Chris Marker 1961 film of the same name. Boty is remembered for her film star paintings, memorably Colour Her Gone, 1962, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe in the year she died. Tate Gallery own another from the Monroe series, The Only Blonde in the World, 1963. Other stars Boty admired received her attention, as in With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo, 1962 and Monica Vitti with Heart, 1963. The installations at the Gazelli Art House have many published features on display, from Vogue to Men Only. All refer to Boty’s strikingly beautiful looks, an aspect of a female artist’s life that probably didn’t happen in interviews with Blake, Hockney, and Allen Jones.
Pauline Boty’s obituary in The Times newspaper, published July 2, 1966,(issue 56673) refers to her acting roles and that she appeared in her first professional stage role at the Royal Court theatre, London. That Boty was noted as an artist and an actress by The Times, pinpoints ‘sixties’ culture where artists, pop singers, models and actors easily crossed-over into other professions. Boty’s obituary referred also to her marriage to Clive Goodwin (1932-1978) a writer and producer, and their four-month old daughter. During a pregnancy check-up Boty’s cancer was discovered. She was offered an abortion in order to receive chemotherapy treatment. She refused and died months after the birth of her daughter Katy (later named Boty). An act of selflessness that highlights her character.
In October this year a book was published on Boty’s life: Pauline Boty: British Pop Art’s Sole Sister, by Marc Kristal (Frances Lincoln, 2023). Another book is Martin Gayford’s earlier Modernists and Mavericks: Bacon, Freud, Hockney and the London Painters (Thames & Hudson, 2018). There is a section on Pauline Boty within it. In addition, she features as a central character in Ali Smith’s novel Autumn (Hamish Hamilton, 2016) too. But Pauline Boty’s legacy is her paintings – there are around fifty of them. Twenty works are currently on show at Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, London W1 until 24 February, 2024. It’s a must-see, if you are in the city, to step back in time to ‘swinging’ London.
Text ©Rosalind Ormiston 11 December 2023 www.rosalindormiston.com
Links:
Exhibition: Pauline Boty: A Portrait Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, London W15 4NN, until 24 February 2024 Gazelli Art House
Book: Pauline Boty: British Pop Art's Sole Sister by Kristal, Marc (amazon.co.uk)
Film: ‘Pop Goes the Easel’, 1962, BBC Monitor documentary by Ken Russell.
BBC iPlayer - Monitor - Pop Goes the Easel
