Author(s): Marc Kristal

Art | Feminism | Women's Histories | Biography and Memoir

The first biography of pioneering female Pop Artist Pauline Boty

Pauline Boty (1938 -1966) was a founding member of the British Pop Art movement and one of its very few women.She attended Londons Royal College of Art at a watershed moment when its students included David Hockney,Peter Blake, R.B. Kitaj and Allen Jones. Dying tragically young at the age of 28, she is now seen as central to British Pop Art and an icon of Sixties culture. As well as her work as an artist, she appeared on the stage, TV and in film (including alongside Michael Caine in Alfie) and was a regular contributor on BBC radio.She was photographed by David Bailey and other society photographers and became a key player in 1960s Londons goldenage.

Outspoken, provocative and charismatic, she refused to accept the oppositions between sexual woman and serious artist, between celebration and critique, between high and low culture. Observer and participant, feminist and hedonist, subject and object, Botys double vision was decades ahead of its time, and prefigured a diversity of artists-everyone from Cindy Sherman to Madonna. Having been largely forgotten after her death, her reputation has been growing steadily since the rediscovery and exhibition of her works in the early 1990s. As well as cropping up regularly in various books, documentaries and newspaper articles since then, she features as a central character in Ali Smiths novel Autumn (2016) and one of her works sold for $1.4m at auction in June 2022. After seeing her work at an auction in 2013, author Marc Kristal has spent almost ten years researching her life, interviewing the people who knew her and delving into archives and libraries.

This is the definitive biography of her life and work, appealing to both those interested in art but in this creative period of British culture.

Review:

"The Pop artist Pauline Boty was a mysterious beauty glimpsed in glossy British magazines, her work obscured by that beauty, her output cut short by her early death. Marc Kristal's exceptional biography brings back to life one of the most compelling figures of sixties London. With exceptional research, intelligent empathy, a talent for contextualizing those times of change and a felicitous style, he brings the many tragedies of her story and the delicious inventions of her oeuvre into full and rewarding focus. One of the best books of its kind I have ever read."

-- Joan Juliet Buck (author)
"How wonderful that one of those exciting and innovative women artists of the 60s should be recovered and celebrated in this way."
-- Julie Christie (actress)
"All the years of [Marc's] work...have made a book that captures the meaning of Pauline's life and work as exactly as is possible." -- Caroline Coon (painter)
"An astonishing, rich examination of a personality, a character completely thorough and balanced...The descriptions are vivid and faultless in tone and detail...Right in so many ways about [Boty's] feminism and its ambiguities. A brilliant job."
-- Richard Hollis (graphic designer)
"I so enjoyed this... Manages to balance the artist, time period and personal life in a very engaging and original way." -- Lynn Horsford (film producer)

"The book brings Pauline back. I feel I know her now - her secrets, her excitements, her fears, the guys, the painting, the running away, the going forward. Marc Kristal is a magician, who remakes a time, and gives the people in it life again. I thought it was terrific." -- Michael Lindsay-Hogg (director)
"Moving, tenderly handled and illuminating... What has clearly been a labour of love."
-- Poppy Luard (production designer & art director)

"I thoroughly enjoyed the book... Most of Pauline's life and the development of Pop Art was new to me and I found it completely absorbing... The book is very nostalgic and brought the Cromwell Road scene back with a bang."

-- Margaret Matheson (film producer)
"I am mightily impressed with [the] storytelling, the ease and forward-motion of [the] lively prose, and of course the tales of all three protagonists." -- Gordon Rogoff (theatre director & critic)
"In this absorbing biography, a vivid collage of voices, and a masterfully written narrative, combine to restore to prominence the life and work of an entirely remarkable woman."
-- Gay Talese (author)

"Wonderfully evocative...This book brings Boty to life: brave, flirty and fizzing with promise."

-- Laura Freeman, The Times of London

"..a rich retelling of the short but intense career of this once-overlooked British Pop artist... an excellent portrait of a vital moment in culture. Kristal has devoted extensive research to the artist's life and work, interviewing many contemporaries and sifting through copious archives. He has vividly reimaged the artistic milieu of the time, interspersing Boty's biographical details with voices from the past, including the artist's own writings."

-- Jonathan Bell, Wallpaper

"A valuable and unusual addition to the literature on British Pop Art - and a necessary counterweight to the male domination of the movement."

-- Marco Livingstone (art historian)
"Kristal's book is a study of the fascinating, now distant ambiance of 1960s London, as well as of a unique figure from that time."
-- Martin Gayford, The Spectator * The Spectator *
"A fascinating, informative, and illustrated biography... exceptionally well written and presented." * Midwest Book Review *

Contents: Introduction
1 SUBURBAN GIRL
2 WIMBLEDON BARDOT
3 AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART: PART 1 'The Place'
4 AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART: PART 2 'Technicolor'
5 AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART: PART 3 'La Boty'
6 AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART: PART 4 'Capital-P Pop'
7 AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART: PART 5 'To think I've got someone like that for a daughter!'
8 HELLO, CRUEL WORLD
9 THE ART OF ACTING
10 BREAKTHROUGH
11 BREAKOUT
12 'A VERY CONFIDENT MAN'
13 PERSONALITY ON TRIAL
14 PAULINE'S CHOICE
15 JOURNEY'S END
16 GONE
Epilogue: Nothing Left in the World
Index
Acknowledgements
Picture credits

Author Biography: Marc Kristal is an author, screenwriter, filmmaker, editor, and journalist. He has authored, co-written or contributed to more than forty books, notably Re:Crafted: Interpretations of Craft in Contemporary Architecture and Interiors (2010), Immaterial World: Transparency in Architecture (2011), and The New Old House: Historic and Modern Architecture Combined (2017). His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper, Metropolis, and Elle Decor.He has also written films about contemporary and modern artists, notably Cindy Sherman and Mark Rothko. He is a two-time MacDowell fellow.