- Artist
- Pauline Boty 1938–1966
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 1224 × 1530 × 25 mm
frame: 1236 × 1541 × 28 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1999
- Reference
- T07496
Display caption
Pauline Boty painted the film star Marilyn Monroe from a photograph. The actor occupies a thin strip of this canvas, squeezed between green sections. Monroe had died a year earlier. Boty spoke about her ‘nostalgia for the things that are now... it’s almost like painting mythology, only a present-day mythology.’ She identified with the challenges Monroe had faced. Boty wanted to be taken seriously intellectually and be free to embody her sexuality at a time when the two were seen as mutually exclusive.
Gallery label, September 2023
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