The Only Blonde in the World 1963

Pauline Boty made "The Only Blonde in the World" with oil paint on canvas, and the way she handles that medium is super interesting. Look at how Boty sets up this painting in blocks of colour. The background is this matte green, punctuated with hard-edged shapes in red and blue, but the figure of Marilyn is treated so differently, almost drippy. The paint is thinly applied, especially on those legs. It’s a kind of slippage between abstraction and figuration. That central panel almost looks like a collaged photograph at first glance, but it's not. It’s paint. The way she paints Marilyn feels like a nod to the pop art sensibility, but with a personal twist. Boty isn't just copying an image; she's bringing her own painterly touch, her own kind of softness. It reminds me a bit of early Warhol, before he went all silkscreen. It's like she's saying, “Yeah, I can do pop, but I’m gonna do it my way.”