Last time, in the Doctor’s Dozen segment of the Serendipitous Compendium radio show, John and I discussed the life and work of Eduardo Paolozzi, one of the founders of the British Pop art movement. In this week’s interview, I connected Paolozzi with Pauline Boty, who was also a founding member of the movement.
Boty was a key player in the frenetic Swinging London social scene that drew together painters, writers, artists, film-makers, musicians, leftwing political activists and poets.
Boty’s paintings and collages often demonstrated a joy in self-assured femininity and female sexuality, and expressed overt or implicit criticism of the “man’s world” in which she lived.
During the late 1950s, Boty became friends with other emerging Pop artists, such as David Hockney, Derek Boshier, Peter Phillips and Peter Blake. As well as studying art, she sang, danced, and acted. Her paintings demonstrate her interest in drawing from both high and low popular culture sources.
Boty, Peter Blake, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips were featured in Ken Russell’s documentary film Pop Goes the Easel broadcast in 1962. Her appearance marked the beginning of her brief acting career.
The popular press picked up on her glamorous actress persona, often undermining her legitimacy as an artist by referring to her physical charms. Scene ran a front-page article in November 1962 that included the following remarks: “Actresses often have tiny brains. Painters often have large beards. Imagine a brainy actress who is also a painter and also a blonde, and you have PAULINE BOTY.”
Next time, we’re crossing over the Atlantic taking us from 1960s London to the beginnings of American Pop art and the multi-talented artist, Larry Rivers.
I became interested in Psuline Boty’s art while researching Peter Blake’s record cover art. How so? You may ask. Well, Blake met Pauline at the Royal College of Art in 1958, and like many of the men there fell in love with the beautiful and talented Pauline. She began a long-term relationship with the married TV producer Philip Saville and had other affairs. Peter Blake was besotted with her and in 1960 or ’61 gave her a painting titled ”Valentine (for Pauline Boty)”. Unfortunately for Blake his feelings were not reciprocated.
However, the ”Valentine” painting proved important to Boty as she chose to be photographed by Lewis Morley nude holding it.
Blake revisited the design of the ”Valentine” for the cover of Band Aid’s 40th anniversary reissue of ”Do They Know It’s Christmas’ in November 2024, sixty-four years after the valentine was painted.