Pauline Boty (1938-1966)
photographed in 1962
'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.' [1]
I.
Reluctant as I am ever to place the word poor before a person's name in order to express sympthy for them, in the case of the British artist Pauline Boty, I'm really tempted to do so.
For hers was a fabulously free-spirited life cut short by a tragic fate and whilst, as a Nietzschean, one is tempted to characterise her death as a heroic affirmation of unborn life - she was pregnant when a routine prenatal exam revealed she had cancer and Boty refused both an abortion and chemotherapy so that a healthy child might survive her - it's hard not to also feel a wee bit sorry for her [2].
II.
Born in 1938, Pauline Boty, along with her friends and contemporaries including Peter Blake and David Hockney, was one of the pioneers of the British Pop art movement of the 1960s.
Conscious of the fact that this movement was, like most other modern art movements, essentially a boy's club - she was the only acknowledged female member - her work is a joyfully defiant expression of her womanhood (including her sexuality), as well as a feminist assault upon the man's world in which she not only painted, but sang, danced, and acted [3].
A clever and well-educated young woman who could reference many poets and European filmmakers, even early on Boty's work also betrayed the influence of popular culture.
Known by fellow art students as the Wimbledon Bardot (on account of her looks), she actually had a greater affinity with Marilyn Monroe, of whom she painted a very lovely portrait in 1962, the year of Monroe's death and the year in which Warhol also began a series of iconic paintings inspired by her passing [4].
Boty's last painting is believed to be one commissioned by Kenneth Tynan for his nude theatrical review Oh, Calcutta! (1969) and entitled BUM (1966), which, I suppose, provides a fitting (rear) end to her career, though I can't say I'm a fan of the canvas which sold at Christie's in 2017 for £632,750 - more than twice its estimated sale price [5].
III.
Sadly, after her death, Pauline's Boty's name was largely forgotten and her work stored in a barn on her brother's farm.
However, beginning in the 1990s, her contribution to British Pop art has undergone a thoroughly deserved re-evaluation and there is now significant interest in Boty's life and work: see the authorised website paulineboty.org for further details.
Pauline Boty: Colour Her Gone (1962)
Oil on canvas (122 x 122 cm)
Notes
[1] This taken from a front page article in the magazine Scene (Nov 1962) is an example of the kind of sexist bullshit that Boty had to contend with.
[2] Boty was diagnosed with a malignant thyoma; a rare type of cancer that forms in the thymus gland, an organ located in the upper chest between the lungs and which is part of the lymphatic and endocrine system. Having refused treatment that might harm the foetus, Boty accepted the terminal nature of her condition and carried on living and creating new work. She died, five months after the birth of her daughter, on July 1st, 1966, aged 28.
[3] Friends and family may have encouraged her to pursue an acting career - not only did it pay more than painting, but it was regarded as a (slightly) more respectable and conventional career path for an attractive young woman at that time - but Boty always prioritised her art over anything else.
[4] Like Warhol, Boty would often repurpose publicity and press photographs of celebrities in her art. As well as Monroe, she painted several of her male idols, including Elvis and the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, in a manner that celebrated their status as objects of female desire.
[5] For those who wish to view Boty's BUM (1966) on the Christie's website, click here.
