LONDON.- Christies will offer Pauline Botys celebratory tribute to Marilyn Monroe, Epitaph to Somethings Gotta Give (1962, estimate: £500,000-800,000), as a leading highlight of the Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale on 20 March. The painting was gifted to a close friend of Botys in 1964 and has remained in the same collection since. One of Pop Arts founding members, Pauline Boty died prematurely at the age of 28 in 1966. Epitaph to Somethings Gotta Give is one of only around 25 Pop paintings that Boty created and was included in a rare lifetime exhibition at Arthur Jeffress Gallery in London in 1962.
Boty painted two further depictions of Monroe as tributes to the actress following her death, both of which are held in museum collections: Colour Her Gone, 1962 (Wolverhampton Art Gallery) and The Only Blond in the World, 1963 (Tate, London). Epitaph to Somethings Gotta Give will be on view in New York from 9 to 21 February before being exhibited in London from 13 to 20 March.
Angus Granlund, Head of Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale, Christies: Painted in Botys distinctive style, Epitaph to Somethings Gotta Give takes the form of a pictorial collage that is entirely rendered in oil paint. A celebration of female empowerment, this is thought to be Botys only painting of Monroe painted during the actress lifetime. The epitaph referred to in the title relates to the film Somethings Gotta Give shutting down production. The centrepiece of the composition is taken from a photograph published in Life magazine on 22 June 1962, depicting Monroe swimming in a pool on set. Collecting, collating and synthesising mass culture imagery from newspapers, adverts and magazines was central to Botys practice. A true polymath, as well as being a ground-breaking artist, Boty was also a talented actress and political activist. She strongly identified with Monroe and is often associated with her. Held in the same private collection since 1964, this rare painting brings together these two celebrated 1960s icons. Christies is honoured to present Epitaph to Somethings Gotta Give as a leading highlight of the Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale and look forward to welcoming clients in New York and London to view this Pop Art masterpiece.
Pauline Boty was a pioneering artist whose work shaped one of the greatest movements in British art of the 20th century. Within her short lifetime, she created a powerful, vibrant group of works that explored popular culture and left-wing politics, subjects which were coming into sharp focus in the 1960s. Boty studied at the Royal College of Art, the seedbed of the Pop Art movement, where she met, befriended and went on to exhibit with Sir Peter Blake, Derek Boshier, David Hockney, Peter Phillips and Patrick Caulfield. In 1961, she exhibited along with Blake and two others at the A.I.A. Gallery in a group show seen as the very first Pop Art exhibition.