Reframing Pauline Boty

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. 

Danielle Radojcin discusses Pauline Boty with  Mila Askarova, owner of Gazelli Art House and curator of the exhibition; Vinny Rawding , film director of a new, soon to be released documentary about Boty; and the curator and art historian Sue Tate, author of a biography on Boty’s life.

Episode artwork: Michael Ward, Untitled (Men Only Cover Shot), 1963/2023. Courtesy of Elizabeth Seal-Ward for the Michael Ward Archive, Iconic Images & Gazelli Art House (detail)

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Of her work, British artist Lubaina Himid says she is "filling in the gaps of history." Danielle Radojcin travels to The Holburne Museum in Bath to meet her at her new exhibition, Lost Threads, which, like much of her work, addresses the histories and legacies of colonialism and slavery.

Himid turns 70 this year. She was born in Zanzibar, but after her father tragically died of malaria when she was just a few months old, her British mother took her to live in the UK, where they settled in London. She eventually studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Art, and the Royal College of Art. 

Over the course of her career, Himid has aimed to make art that creates a dialogue with her audience - she has said how the patterns in her work are a form of narrative; she has also made a point of championing under-represented artists, especially Black and Asian women. She became a key figure in the 1980s London, “Black art” movement, in which so called black art moved from the margins to the centre of British culture thanks in part to a series of influential exhibitions Himid curated. She was the first Black woman to win the Turner Prize, which she was awarded in 2017, and was elected to the Royal Academy in 2018, the same year she was made a CBE for services to art. Today, she  lives and works in Preston, where she is a professor at the University of Central Lancashire. Himid sat down with me at the Holburne in the midst of the press preview of her new exhibition, in one of the main, very large rooms there, to tell me a bit about her work…

Episode artwork: Lubaina Himid, Man in a Pyjama Drawer, 2021 via Hollybush Gardens

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Journalist Danielle Radojcin visits British artist David Remfry in his studio, where he reflects on his life as an artist - from 60s London (Francis Bacon was a neighbour), to 20 years spent living in the Chelsea Hotel to a triumph at the Royal Academy  - and the famous people who have sat for him along the way. 

Born in Worthing in the 50s and raised in the northern industrial town of Hull, Remfry studied art and moved to London in the 60s, holding his first solo exhibition there in 1973. A life-threatening illness and a chance encounter with an American gallerist propelled him to fame in Los Angeles in 1980, when an exhibition of his work there sold out immediately.   

He became known for his large scale watercolour landscapes and portraits, and in particular for his ongoing series of people dancing. His portraits of the fashion designer Jean Muir and the actor John Gielgud are held at the National Portrait Gallery, as well as which he has work in the permanent collections at the V&A and RA. 

Over the years he has enjoyed a strong connection with the USA – he spent 20 years in New York, where he lived in the storied Chelsea Hotel, often asking his neighbours, who included Quentin Crisp and Ethan Hawke, to sit for him. In 2001 he was  awarded an MBE for services to British Art in America.

In 2006 he was elected a Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and last summer he was celebrated for his enthusiastic curation of the Summer Exhibition, in which he was determined to give a voice to under-represented talent. He's also known for painting the interior of the famous tea salon at Fortnum & Mason, and a fashion campaign he drew for the fashion designer Stella McCartney.

In spite of his achievements, however, he vows he'll never be part of the establishment and continues to draw - and dance - every day. In 2025 there will be a retrospective of his work in Beverely, Yorkshire.

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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“Joy is something that requires work and commitment. It doesn’t just fall on you like rain.” So says Francesco Risso, the creative director at Italian fashion house Marni, where he has been in post since 2016. For this episode, guest host Simon Chilvers speaks with Francesco and Carlos Nazario, the stylist with whom Risso works, about how they came to work together, and what inspires them.

Founded in 1994 by Consuelo Castiglioni, Marni built a devoted following for its intellectual and artistically-minded approach to clothes. When Castiglioni stepped down in 2016, Risso was appointed as creative director, continuing the brand’s legacy of cerebral design but with a renewed focus on beauty and craft. 

Before working for Marni, the Sardinian-born, Central Saint Martins-educated  Risso spent time working for Prada, Blumarine and Alessandro Dell’Acqua.

Carlos Nazario is a New York-based stylist who was global fashion director of i-D magazine and former assistant of Joe McKenna, whose previous clients include Calvin Klein, Nike and Proenza Schouler, before being appointed style director at large for Harper’s Bazaar.

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Artist Amber Pinkerton describes what it's like moving to London from Jamaica as a young woman, and her experiences of alienation and self-awakening.  The photraphic film-maker and conceptual artist creates work which ranges from art to fashion photography to installation, with a self-described focus on themes of identity, personhood and the nature of individual and cultural agency, colourism and class. Pinkerton's work has been featured in publications such as Vanity Fair,  and Dazed and she has shot campaigns for fashion clients including Gucci, Valentino, as well as for Nike and Netflix. Represented by the Alice Black gallery in London, where she currently has a show on display until mid November, Danielle Radojcin sits down with Amber to hear about her background and how it informs her work. 

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Danielle Radojcin talks to Sam Lackey, director at the Liverpool Biennial and the UK’s largest festival of contemporary art. The biennial, a festival which happens every two years in a city around the world, and often in disused spaces, is the chance to revitalise the city it’s taking place in. The 12th edition of the Liverpool Biennial, curated by ‎Khanyisile Mbongwa, addressed the history of the city of Liverpool and its connections to the slave trade, and acted as a call for  “ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing.” Sam looks back at the highs and lows of this year's fair, and talks about her vision for it moving forward. 

https://www.biennial.com/

@danielleradojcin

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Since the 70s, photographer Janette Beckman has documented youth culture in street scenes on both sides of the Atlantic, capturing musicians such as Dr Dre, Pete Townsend and Paul Weller, just before they hit the big time. Captivated by street style, her photojournalism has caught on camera everything from punks and rockers in London to the  gangs of East Los Angeles.

Janette grew up in London and spent time as a youth working for some of the most preeminent music and youth culture magazines of the day, such as Melody Maker and The Face. In the 80s she moved to New York, where she still lives today, and where she made a name for herself documenting the nascent hip hop scene. A career working for major magazine titles and prestigious subjects followed. More recently, she has spent time in Paris photographing the Christian Dior collections as well as documenting Black Lives Matter demonstrations. She exhibits prolifically, has published several books, and recently took part in a talk at Fotografiska celebrating women in hip hop. 

Danielle Radojcin speaks to Janette about her life as an itinerant female documentary photographer, as well as what it was like going to the  Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park after Brian Jones died; her first assignment photographing Siouxsie and the Banshees; and how it feels having her work displayed at The National Portrait Gallery. 

janettebeckman.com

Photo: © Janette Beckman

Logo artwork: Patrick Waugh

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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The British fashion brand S.S. Daley, designed by Steven Stokey-Daley, makes clothes for men and women that celebrate traditional tropes of English heritage while also playfully subverting embedded ideas around queerness and class. And it's struck a chord: Anna Wintour has given him her approval, Sir Ian McKellen has walked in his show, and Harry Styles has worn his clothes. Steven grew up in Liverpool and studied at the University of Westminster, after which he did internships at Tom Ford and Alexander McQueen. He set up S.S. Daley in 2020, and in 2022 it won the prestigious LVMH prize.  Ahead of his first solo women's show and the relaunch of his retail website,  founder and designer Steven Stokey-Daley speaks to this episode's guest host, the journalist and creative director Simon Chilvers, about being inspired by David Hockney and Kate Bush and how his label fits into today's fashion landscape. 

Photo: Joshua Tarn

Logo: Patrick Waugh

Sound: Warren Borg

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Danielle heads to Somerset House in London to speak with Aindrea Emelife, the Nigerian-British curator and art historian. Specialising in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation, her writing includes the book A Brief History of Protest Art, and in 2021, she was appointed to the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm. She is currently Curator of Modern and Contemporary at the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), in Edo State, Nigeria. This summer she has curated an exhibition at Somerset House in London called Black Venus, which brings together the work of 18 Black women and non-binary artists to explore the othering, fetishisation and reclamation of narratives around Black femininity. The exhibition examines the complex narratives of Black womanhood through the influences of three perceived archetypes: the Hottentot Venus, the Sable Venus, and the Jezebel, and reframes stereotypical notions of black womanhood through the work of contemporary artists including Sonia Boyce, Carrie Mae Weems, Amber Pinkerton and Lorna Simpson. Aindrea talks about how she became interested in the history of art, and why she felt this was an important theme to address. 

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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Moki Cherry was a Swedish artist who lived between 1943 and 2009 and who made a name for herself initially through a two-decades long artistic collaboration with her husband, the Jazz musician Don Cherry, and then later as an artist in her own right, developing an expansive and collaborative practice across textile, sculpture, painting, drawing, writing, collage, and video. As a mother -  her children are the musicians Neneh Cherry and Eagle Eye Cherry - she found a way of working her art around running a household, saying, “I survived by taking a creative attitude to daily life and chores." An exhibition of her work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London celebrates Cherry’s exploration of where art and life meet, her collaborative and interdisciplinary practice, and her inventive resolve in the face of gendered challenges working both as an artist and mother.  

ICA director Bengi Ünsal explains why she decided to feature a Moki Cherry show, and Naima Karlsson, Moki’s granddaughter and an archivist and coordinator for the Estate of Moki Cherry and Cherry Archive, delves into their personal relationship, what she was like as a person, her individualistic beliefs and how it all fed into her work.

Further reading:

https://mokicherry.com/

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

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