0:00:06 > 0:00:10In the late 1950s and early '60s, a new movement sees
0:00:10 > 0:00:15the imagery of mass-produced popular culture, and turned it into art.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21According to received wisdom, women in pop art usually
0:00:21 > 0:00:25appear like objects and the artists who painted them were men.
0:00:25 > 0:00:28But the reality was very different.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Pop art wasn't an all-boys club.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39From the beginning, female artists pioneered a vision
0:00:39 > 0:00:42of consumer culture that was as brilliant and surprising
0:00:42 > 0:00:45as that of their male counterparts.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51These artists captured the spirit of the changing world.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53- You've got silhouettes everywhere. - Yeah.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57She was doing Mad Men before Mad Men, wasn't she?
0:00:57 > 0:01:00They revolutionised what a woman could be.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03I was not expecting this at all.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07And transformed what we thought of as art.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11He said, "You should cast it in bronze."
0:01:11 > 0:01:13I said, "I've cast it in cloth."
0:01:14 > 0:01:17So, why haven't we heard of them?
0:01:17 > 0:01:20I didn't know them, and I'm a pop artist.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24Consciously or not, for decades, critics, curators,
0:01:24 > 0:01:27gallery owners and dealers have been telling an inaccurate,
0:01:27 > 0:01:31one-sided, even chauvinistic tale.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35Some of the most important pop artists were written out of history.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37The women.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46Women pop artists didn't make many history books,
0:01:46 > 0:01:49but if you know where to look, they were there...
0:01:50 > 0:01:53These are some of the female artists of pop.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55They're all extraordinarily glamorous,
0:01:55 > 0:01:58but they dealt with much more than just beauty.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02In the '60s when pop as a movement was starting to form,
0:02:02 > 0:02:04these women were very important artists...
0:02:04 > 0:02:07they were being shown in galleries, they were being reviewed.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Other artists, their male contemporaries,
0:02:09 > 0:02:12would have seen their work and possibly even been influenced by it.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15But, now, they've dropped out of our history a little bit.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18Their lives now aren't documented in the same sort of detail
0:02:18 > 0:02:21as those of their male contemporaries.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24Jann Haworth...
0:02:24 > 0:02:26Idelle Weber...
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Rosalyn Drexler...
0:02:29 > 0:02:30Marisol...
0:02:31 > 0:02:33And, perhaps the most intriguing one of them all,
0:02:33 > 0:02:37at least for British audience, is this lady...Pauline Boty.
0:02:41 > 0:02:46In 1962, a landmark BBC documentary put pop art on the map.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50Ken Russell's film Pop Goes The Easel
0:02:50 > 0:02:52unleashed a group of young firebrands,
0:02:52 > 0:02:54the most radical and exciting artists
0:02:54 > 0:02:56Britain had seen for a generation.
0:02:58 > 0:03:00One of them was Pauline Boty.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04What's that? That's crazy.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07That's an occasional spaceship flying through the sky.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09You get them every now and again.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13Pauline Boty embodied the spirit of pop.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18She engaged in it and encouraged everyone else.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23She was an instigator and an enabler, if you like.
0:03:23 > 0:03:24Definitely.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30Boty and her pop contemporaries celebrated
0:03:30 > 0:03:32the end of post-war gloom,
0:03:32 > 0:03:36and embraced a new mood of optimism, inclusion, and social change.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44Daring libertarians, the group exploded ideas about what art,
0:03:44 > 0:03:46and artists should be.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51And the establishment was horrified.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56From the world of film stars, the twist,
0:03:56 > 0:03:58science fiction, pop singers...
0:03:58 > 0:04:02a world which you can dismiss, if you feel so inclined, of course,
0:04:02 > 0:04:03as being tawdry and second rate...
0:04:03 > 0:04:06but a world all the same, in which everybody, to some degree,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10anyway, lives, whether we like it or not.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12It was the cultural programme. It was Monitor.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15People were thinking they'd get ballet, opera, you know,
0:04:15 > 0:04:18none of this rubbish, this pop art.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21People wrote in saying they were going to cancel their...
0:04:21 > 0:04:24they weren't going to pay their subscription to the BBC.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30For Boty, art had the power not only to tear down the establishment,
0:04:30 > 0:04:32but also to transform society.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37As the '60s began, a woman's fate was still marriage,
0:04:37 > 0:04:40motherhood and domesticity...
0:04:40 > 0:04:43and it was a future that Boty refused to accept.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48# Well, I insist that everybody twist!
0:04:48 > 0:04:51# Come on everybody Let's twist, hey! #
0:04:51 > 0:04:54A decade before mainstream feminism,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56Pauline Boty had a mission.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01To challenge a sexist society and its confining gender stereotypes.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05# Round and round and you lift your leg up and down
0:05:05 > 0:05:08# And you twist around the clock Around the clock! #
0:05:09 > 0:05:12A revolution is on the way and all over the country,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15young girls are sprouting, shouting and shaking.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17And if they terrify you, they mean to,
0:05:17 > 0:05:19and they're beginning to impress the world.
0:05:21 > 0:05:26Pauline Boty set out to reinvent the kind of woman one could be.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28And I think that's really significant.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30She was trying to change the rules.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35A lot of the women pop artists were very good looking,
0:05:35 > 0:05:40and they were so trapped by how they looked, they were never allowed
0:05:40 > 0:05:42to escape from being beautiful young women,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44so they used pop to explore it.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50In Boty's early paintings, women are often glamorous, beautiful,
0:05:50 > 0:05:52sexually alluring...
0:05:52 > 0:05:54but they're something else, too.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57Fantasies dreamt up by Hollywood and the media.
0:05:59 > 0:06:05# I want to be loved by you Just you and nobody else but you. #
0:06:06 > 0:06:10Pauline Boty very much identified with Marilyn Monroe.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14This kind of highly sexual, yet vulnerable and interesting woman.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17It's not that kind of cool, detached image that you get
0:06:17 > 0:06:19in the screen prints of Warhol.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23It's this empathetic, involved position of the fan.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27So, you feel this is almost articulating that emotional,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30psychological thing that happens when a fan looks at an icon,
0:06:30 > 0:06:33and there it is, a black and white dead image,
0:06:33 > 0:06:35but you bring something to it
0:06:35 > 0:06:38and create something that feels much more alive.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41Exactly, and I think that's what Pauline Boty captures
0:06:41 > 0:06:43in the way that she uses paint,
0:06:43 > 0:06:47whilst also referencing black and white PR imagery.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54Marilyn's death in 1962 devastated Boty,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57inspiring her elegy, Colour Her Gone.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02She believed that Marilyn had been betrayed by men,
0:07:02 > 0:07:04who were unable to see her intelligence
0:07:04 > 0:07:06through her dazzling sex appeal.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11Boty was determined be taken seriously,
0:07:11 > 0:07:15while also revelling in her glamour, and simply having fun.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21# On the good ship, lollipop... #
0:07:21 > 0:07:24In 1962, Boty started auditioning for films
0:07:24 > 0:07:28and performing in plays, all the while continuing to paint.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30# ..On the good ship Lollipop! #
0:07:34 > 0:07:38- Hello.- Hello, Natalie, I'm Alistair. It's a beautiful old house.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42'Natalie Gibson met Boty in her first week at the Royal College of Art,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44'and they became close friends immediately.'
0:07:47 > 0:07:50'She witnessed Boty trying to make it as starlet AND artist.'
0:07:51 > 0:07:53That's a very glamorous picture.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58- This looks like a proper press photograph.- I think it is.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01I mean, looking at these she seems like somebody who was blessed
0:08:01 > 0:08:03with a great deal of charisma?
0:08:03 > 0:08:07Absolutely. She was such a vivacious girl.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10I mean, there wasn't anything she couldn't do really.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13She was just a kind of force.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Well, this was something where people were choosing
0:08:16 > 0:08:20their ideal girl, and David Frost chose Pauline.
0:08:20 > 0:08:22"'I like women who can do things,'
0:08:22 > 0:08:24"said David as we queued for tea in the BBC canteen.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27"'You know, a really swinging bird.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29"'It's important she should look sexy,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31"'but she must have the other thing as well.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34"'She must look as though she could become Minister of Pensions.'"
0:08:34 > 0:08:38I think perhaps he thought she had an intellect, or she was clever,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42and well read and bright, as well as being sexy.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47Boty was determined to change the status quo.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50And to her, sexual liberation was the key.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57Poor retiring English female, so unsure of their sexuality,
0:08:57 > 0:08:58their femininity.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02Your men are the ones who talk, who act, who do.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05You're only their wives, a nondescript appendage,
0:09:05 > 0:09:07a second-class citizen.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13For Pauline Boty, women would only be equals
0:09:13 > 0:09:17when they could express their sexuality as freely as men.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22And she thought that time was fast approaching.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27# Five, four, three, two, one! #
0:09:28 > 0:09:31The TV show Ready Steady Go! defined a generation
0:09:31 > 0:09:34with its catchy theme tune.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39# Five, four, three, two, one! #
0:09:41 > 0:09:43Boty danced in its studio,
0:09:43 > 0:09:45and for her, the show seemed to symbolise
0:09:45 > 0:09:49the sexual possibility and freedom of the times.
0:09:52 > 0:09:58This painting is about the pleasures of dancing to pop music for women,
0:09:58 > 0:10:01but also sexual anticipation.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05The rose was very much Pauline's iconography
0:10:05 > 0:10:08for female sexual desire and sensuality.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12- You're wearing one today.- And I'm wearing one in honour of her today.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16But, when we look more closely, it's over-painted with flesh tones,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20it's wild and hair-like and perhaps these are legs each side.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24It is very suggestive of female genitalia,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27some things about the lived, embodied experience
0:10:27 > 0:10:30of sexual arousal for a woman.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36A sexual libertarian, a feminist ahead of her time...
0:10:36 > 0:10:40so, why on earth did Boty portray herself like this?
0:10:40 > 0:10:43I mean, in this case she's completely starkers.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46She always posed with her paintings...
0:10:46 > 0:10:49when most of the women at that time posed with their work,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51they would be in black clothes, black slacks, black top.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53Very androgynous.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56They hid the fact that they were women,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00and what Pauline wanted to do was to absolutely smash that open, saying,
0:11:00 > 0:11:06"No, I'm a sexually proactive being, just like men, and if I am naked
0:11:06 > 0:11:09"with my painting there is no way you can avoid the fact
0:11:09 > 0:11:11"this is a woman."
0:11:11 > 0:11:14It was a really transgressive and brave thing to do,
0:11:14 > 0:11:15but it didn't work.
0:11:17 > 0:11:19Boty began to lose control of her image.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23She appeared in her underwear without her paintings at all
0:11:23 > 0:11:27in publications like Tit-Bits, a notorious soft-porn mag.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33The art director at Tit-Bits sliced off the paintings,
0:11:33 > 0:11:36so that all you've got left is the pretty girl,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40for the delectation of the Tit-Bits' male audience.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42So, you're saying she never sanctioned her photographs
0:11:42 > 0:11:45- appearing in a magazine like this. - No.
0:11:47 > 0:11:48But it was too late.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54Boty's image as a sexy, scantily clad starlet,
0:11:54 > 0:11:57began to overshadow her reputation as an artist.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04She vented her frustrations in this painting of cult writer
0:12:04 > 0:12:08Derek Marlowe, a heart-throb equally celebrated for his brains.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14It's a very seductive, attractive portrayal.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18This is an individuated man, as he's carefully painted photorealist.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23And then above are the unknown ladies.
0:12:23 > 0:12:25They're unknown they're trying to be known,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28they all look the same, they've got the same make-up,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30they're straining for visibility
0:12:30 > 0:12:32within what is possible in that world at the time.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36These seem, to me, to be an expression of despair
0:12:36 > 0:12:39at having to present yourself in a certain way that
0:12:39 > 0:12:44we see around here in the '60s in the media, and it's a way that,
0:12:44 > 0:12:46if you're a man, she's saying, you can get away with it.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50Yep, and I think that's what depressed her.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52The last couple of years of her life,
0:12:52 > 0:12:53she got very depressed, actually.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57And she found it very difficult to be heard and seen as an artist.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02In 1965, Boty's luck seemed to change.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07She was overjoyed when she fell pregnant.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12But a routine X-ray revealed devastating news.
0:13:13 > 0:13:14She had cancer.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19To protect her unborn child,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22she refused the treatment that could have saved her life.
0:13:23 > 0:13:28She told me she thought it would take about ten years off her life.
0:13:29 > 0:13:31But that she'd be better, you know.
0:13:31 > 0:13:33She'd get out of there.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37The last time I went to see her, I dragged Peter Blake along
0:13:37 > 0:13:40cos he hadn't seen her,
0:13:40 > 0:13:41and, um...
0:13:41 > 0:13:43it was too late.
0:13:47 > 0:13:53Boty died on July 1st, 1966, leaving behind a 5-month-old baby.
0:13:54 > 0:13:56She was 28.
0:13:57 > 0:13:59As soon as Pauline died, her work disappeared.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05She had a three-year life of making pop paintings, basically...
0:14:05 > 0:14:07and after that, the work totally disappeared.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13She was this...
0:14:13 > 0:14:16troubling memory
0:14:16 > 0:14:20of something extraordinary in the back of my mind.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25In 1993, art historian David Mellor was planning
0:14:25 > 0:14:27an exhibition of British pop art.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33He had a hunch that Boty's paintings were worth including.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37If these things existed, where the hell had they gone to? Nobody knew.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40COW MOOS
0:14:40 > 0:14:41But somebody did know.
0:14:42 > 0:14:47Not in the heart of London's art scene, but in a farm in Kent.
0:14:47 > 0:14:52Bridget Boty was married to Pauline's brother, a farmer.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56They didn't come to light until the day
0:14:56 > 0:14:58that we were clearing out the house.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01And I said to Arthur, "We can't put those paintings in the tip."
0:15:01 > 0:15:05What Arthur, your husband, wanted to just throw away his sister's...?
0:15:05 > 0:15:08No, it was a question of finding a space for them, wasn't it?
0:15:08 > 0:15:10And so we slung it into the horse box
0:15:10 > 0:15:14and just slung it into the mess room when we got back...
0:15:14 > 0:15:17it was the only dry place we could find.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19And that's where it stayed.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24A chance tip-off led David Mellor to the Botys' farm.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28He was determined to recover the works,
0:15:28 > 0:15:30and have them seen by the public.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33So, you're telling me that this is the place.
0:15:33 > 0:15:38Yes, in 1992 I came here with Pauline's daughter.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40What, here to the loo?
0:15:40 > 0:15:42To the loo... It wasn't a loo then!
0:15:42 > 0:15:46And looking here now, you know there's a...
0:15:46 > 0:15:48there's a plastic sack of potatoes,
0:15:48 > 0:15:51there's loads of bits and pieces, and the thing I find extraordinary,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55it's almost like, if you're looking for an image of women artists
0:15:55 > 0:15:57from the '60s being ignored, we're standing within it.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02It could have been a lot of firewood stacked up, but it wasn't,
0:16:02 > 0:16:07it was this thing that was a mass of massive cultural importance,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09because suddenly...
0:16:09 > 0:16:13a kind of whole history of English pop was different.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17She's not the only woman pop artist
0:16:17 > 0:16:20to be marginalised from the story of pop.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25There were a wide range of women who did make names for themselves
0:16:25 > 0:16:29at the time, but have been variously marginalised or excluded,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32and the low watermark was achieved in 1991,
0:16:32 > 0:16:37when the Royal Academy of Art had a huge retrospective of pop,
0:16:37 > 0:16:41where one out of 202 pop works was by a woman.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47If British Pop art has a hierarchy, then this man is at the top.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49Sir Peter Blake.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55In 1967, one of his most famous images would rebrand
0:16:55 > 0:16:59a mop top boy band into a group of serious artists...
0:16:59 > 0:17:00the Beatles.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10The Sergeant Pepper album cover,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13a compendium of the Beatles' cultural heroes,
0:17:13 > 0:17:16was a crucial part of the concept.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20# But they're guaranteed to raise a smile
0:17:20 > 0:17:23# So may I introduce to you... #
0:17:23 > 0:17:24Peter Blake went on to find fame
0:17:24 > 0:17:27as one of the founding fathers of pop art.
0:17:27 > 0:17:28But, he didn't work alone.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31And actually, the Sergeant Pepper record cover
0:17:31 > 0:17:33was a collaboration, and today,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36the other artist who created this is practically unknown.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41Until their divorce in 1981, Jann Howarth
0:17:41 > 0:17:46was one half of a pop art power couple, along with Peter Blake.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53To find her, I've flown 5,000 miles to the mountains of Provo, Utah,
0:17:53 > 0:17:55where Haworth now lives.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59This is the most magical house I've ever seen!
0:17:59 > 0:18:02The eye is drawn somewhat to the enormous moose head
0:18:02 > 0:18:03above your fireplace.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06I have a vision on you on the top of a mountain with a gun...
0:18:06 > 0:18:07killing this big creature.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10No, you might have a vision of me painting it blue.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12And, of course, I can't help but noticing this.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17This is what many people don't know you for...
0:18:17 > 0:18:18SHE LAUGHS
0:18:18 > 0:18:20..but should.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Staged by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. So, there it is.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27- Yeah, there it is.- Not quite black and white...black and red.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33This may look like a collage, but really, it's a photo.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36The figures were huge... life-size cut outs,
0:18:36 > 0:18:40dummies and sculptures, creating an enormous 3D film set.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43Even the lettering was made of real flowers.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48The Beatles just posed in the middle.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51The thing about this is that it's got quite a contentious
0:18:51 > 0:18:53- authorship history, really. - Yeah, it does.
0:18:53 > 0:18:55To set the record straight from your point of view -
0:18:55 > 0:18:58which bits of this did you create?
0:18:58 > 0:19:00Well, the concept of the set comes straight out of what
0:19:00 > 0:19:03I was doing at the time, I was doing tableaux.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07That overarching concept of making it life size.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09And the lettering is mine.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12The crowd concept is very much Peter.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Sergeant Pepper only earned them 200 quid,
0:19:15 > 0:19:17but it did win them a Grammy.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20It's now a little worse for wear.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24Jann, what has happened? This is...
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Children have happened.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29They used it in their little Wendy house outside,
0:19:29 > 0:19:31and that's the dog... the dog chewed that.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34And this, once upon a time, was a gramophone horn up here was it?
0:19:34 > 0:19:38- Yes.- So, this is a kind of metaphor really for your outlook?- Absolutely.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41It's a two fingers up at a certain system.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44Well, it's like a piece of iconoclastic art.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47Yeah...bash it up, put it an old bag,
0:19:47 > 0:19:49leave it out in the rain... it's wonderful.
0:19:53 > 0:19:58In 1962, Haworth arrived at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02She didn't exactly receive a warm welcome.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07I said to one of the tutors, "Do you need to see a portfolio of my work?"
0:20:07 > 0:20:10and he said, "Oh, well, no, we don't really need to see portfolios
0:20:10 > 0:20:13"of the women students... we just need to see their photograph
0:20:13 > 0:20:16"because they're here to keep the boys happy."
0:20:16 > 0:20:19- No way!- I promise you, not a word of a lie.
0:20:19 > 0:20:24At the Slade, for sure, there was this kind of separation,
0:20:24 > 0:20:28that somehow the male students knew about paint, and they would do this
0:20:28 > 0:20:34and say, "Well, men just know about paint, you know, women don't."
0:20:38 > 0:20:40Haworth did know about something.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43She'd been sewing since she was eight.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46- We're going to make a doughnut.- What sort of doughnut is this going to be?
0:20:46 > 0:20:48This is a superhero doughnut.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51A skill so historically tied to women,
0:20:51 > 0:20:53it wasn't thought of as art.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57I don't quite understand how it can go inside-out.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00- There you are.- So, now we stuff it, do we?- Yeah, we do.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03- I'm a doughnut natural. Is that what you're saying?- I am.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08She knew in this field at least, she could outdo the men.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12- I don't get what you're doing at all. - So, you pull there.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15So, you just pull out like this all the way...pull it tight?
0:21:15 > 0:21:17Pull it tight.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19This is harder than it looks.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23Haworth had her breakthrough on the bus.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28There were tulips for sale and I so wanted to have them,
0:21:28 > 0:21:30and I thought, "Cloth, I could make them out of cloth."
0:21:30 > 0:21:32And then it was just BANG!
0:21:32 > 0:21:36Because you thought, OK, gloves - that's a flower.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38And, OK, zips - that's a snapdragon.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42It just was like a dam burst of dreams because it was
0:21:42 > 0:21:46something that I really understood and I knew the male students didn't.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50There was a shift going on in British sculpture
0:21:50 > 0:21:51and she's part of that,
0:21:51 > 0:21:53and I think she kind of gets neglected out of that story.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56Think of the history of sculpture in general,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58she's one of the originators of doing soft sculpture.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00So, I think that's really significant.
0:22:00 > 0:22:05Traditional sculpture was cold, rigid, and on a plinth.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09Haworth's sculpture was warm, yielding, and homely.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15It was a mischievous challenge to a time-honoured way of making art.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21At the Slade, where Haworth was taught by some of the biggest names
0:22:21 > 0:22:23in modern art, it caused a stir.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28One of her tutors was Eduardo Paolozzi.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34When I showed Paolozzi, he said, "You should cast it in bronze."
0:22:34 > 0:22:40And I had the presence of mind to say to him, "I've cast it in cloth."
0:22:44 > 0:22:48Haworth's big break came in 1963, when her work was showcased
0:22:48 > 0:22:51at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58She's recreated part of that exhibition here,
0:22:58 > 0:23:01in the Brigham Young University Museum in Provo.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06I love this guy, he's so great!
0:23:06 > 0:23:10He's like your sort of... rather gruff guard dog.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13- Would you like to adjust his tongue? - Can I touch his tongue?
0:23:13 > 0:23:15Yeah, I think it's one of the things...
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Look, the tongue comes out!
0:23:17 > 0:23:19Indeed, the tongue does come out.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25Cloth doesn't last. It's fragile, it degrades.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28It was the perfect symbol for human frailty.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32That whole interest in the body and how the body is soft
0:23:32 > 0:23:35and sags and responds to gravity,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38it's more like what the potential of those materials can do.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41That's why soft sculpture's important.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46The idea really was that older people are sort of trapped
0:23:46 > 0:23:48in a chair or immobile.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53The old become a piece of furniture perhaps.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58I was trying to make the idea of wrinkles be not an awful thing,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01but something that was sort of full of colour,
0:24:01 > 0:24:03and livelihood, and memory.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08With her stitched grannies and cloth objects,
0:24:08 > 0:24:11Haworth had discovered a new direction for sculpture.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15We can still see her influence today.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19With Tracey Emin you have, you know, sewing.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23Sarah Lucas, you know, her body parts that are sewn together with
0:24:23 > 0:24:24stockings and things like that.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28There's a generation that takes the sewing and incorporates it
0:24:28 > 0:24:31into fine art and that's why Jann's important,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34she's the beginning of that, that still has lineage.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40Yet, unbeknown to Haworth, on the other side of the Atlantic,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44another artist was starting to make soft sculptures of his own.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50Claes Oldenburg got his wife to sew the giant hamburgers
0:24:50 > 0:24:53that helped elevate him to the pop art pantheon.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56Today, it's Oldenburg, not Haworth,
0:24:56 > 0:24:58who's known as the pioneer of soft sculpture.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03This wasn't always the case.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11From the mid-'60s, Haworth's work received international acclaim.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15It caught the eye of Robert Fraser,
0:25:15 > 0:25:18swinging London's most important art dealer.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22It was only Bridget Riley and I, and Yoko Ono,
0:25:22 > 0:25:24who were part of the gallery as females,
0:25:24 > 0:25:26but that wasn't bad company to be in.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28It's fantastic company.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31- You were having a great moment in the '60s.- Yeah.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35But, Haworth's moment didn't last.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40# Happy Birthday, dear Peter... #
0:25:40 > 0:25:44In the 1970s, she moved to the country to raise a family.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47Away from the London art scene,
0:25:47 > 0:25:52Blake's reputation continued to grow, but Haworth's began to fade.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57I felt I could do it all. I felt I could be an artist,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00take care of my daughter, and do all the cooking,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03and shopping and cleaning, all of that stuff.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06And I was willing to take that position at that time.
0:26:06 > 0:26:11I mean, now, I think I was exceptionally stupid in that regard,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16and made an exceptionally good decision in terms of my children.
0:26:16 > 0:26:21You know, the making of a mind is...it is...
0:26:21 > 0:26:25it surpasses the making of an art object.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27People are more important than art.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37Pop art might have started in Britain, but it took off in America.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42At the start of the '60s, there was no place on earth
0:26:42 > 0:26:45more dazzling than New York City.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52I think there's something really thrilling about approaching New York
0:26:52 > 0:26:54like this because you see the city erupting out of the water
0:26:54 > 0:26:58like this great, gleaming metropolis of the future.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02And it helps to give you a sense, for me, anyway, of how excited
0:27:02 > 0:27:07the pop artists of the '60s must have been just by capitalism, generally.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09They wanted to incorporate the everyday reality
0:27:09 > 0:27:11they found in the city into their art.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21For millions of Americans, the shiny reality of advertising
0:27:21 > 0:27:24belied the drudgery of office work and commuting.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32And this was the world explored in the paintings of this woman.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34Idelle Weber.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43- Hi. Yeah, hello.- Hi. - Should I open this up?
0:27:43 > 0:27:47- That would be a good idea.- Really good to meet you.- Nice to meet you.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51It's pretty cool having an elevator
0:27:51 > 0:27:53- that goes straight into your apartment...- If it works.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57- Oh, right. Convenient if it does. - But, it doesn't always...
0:27:57 > 0:28:00- Ah, Mad Men.- Yeah, Mad Men, right.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04Do you yourself see similarities between your paintings
0:28:04 > 0:28:06and the Mad Men title sequence?
0:28:06 > 0:28:08- Oh, no question, no question. - How do you feel?
0:28:08 > 0:28:11What am I going to do, you know? Scream? Sue them?
0:28:12 > 0:28:17Mad Men's stark, stylish silhouettes won the show an Emmy in 2008.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24Idelle Weber pioneered the look 50 years earlier.
0:28:31 > 0:28:36It all began in 1956 with her first visit to New York City.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41Aged 24, Weber was being featured in an exhibition
0:28:41 > 0:28:43at the Museum of Modern Art.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47- This is your first exhibition.- Yeah.
0:28:47 > 0:28:49It must have been validation for you as a young artist.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51Oh, my God, I was thrilled.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54She didn't go to the opening alone.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56So, this is you and Julian.
0:28:56 > 0:28:57Yeah. He was very impressed
0:28:57 > 0:29:00by the fact that I was in the Museum of Modern Art.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03I said that's what he married me for...fame and fortune.
0:29:03 > 0:29:04This was your future husband?
0:29:04 > 0:29:07Yeah, I knew almost immediately, I walked
0:29:07 > 0:29:11up the steps to that place and I just went "Oh, my God."
0:29:11 > 0:29:15I could... It was really something.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19I just thought, "I've never met anyone like this, ever."
0:29:19 > 0:29:20The night before I went, he said,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23"Hey, let's go back and get married."
0:29:23 > 0:29:25And I waited two seconds and said, "Sure."
0:29:26 > 0:29:30'Through her marriage, Weber would see a world that transformed
0:29:30 > 0:29:32'the way she made art.'
0:29:32 > 0:29:35- So, this is your working space, this is your studio.- Yeah.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38God, look, so this is a reproduction of the munchkins you did,
0:29:38 > 0:29:41- and you've got silhouettes everywhere.- Yeah.
0:29:41 > 0:29:42This looks like Prince Charles.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46Well, it does a little bit, doesn't it? This, actually, is my husband.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48I took a picture of him and he posed.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50- He's very dapper.- He was.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56A corporate lawyer,
0:29:56 > 0:30:00Julian worked amid the gleaming new architecture of Manhattan.
0:30:02 > 0:30:04Weber would meet him after work.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09The glass-fronted skyscrapers captured her imagination.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15And what she saw inside them would become her subject.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22Through the windows of the Lever building, Weber saw the silhouettes
0:30:22 > 0:30:26of workers, who, like her husband toiled late into the night.
0:30:27 > 0:30:29There's such a big element of repetition.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33And, like, if you look up here, this is like it's the same guy.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37- It is, it is.- Are you sort of saying that there's something supremely
0:30:37 > 0:30:39boring about corporate life?
0:30:39 > 0:30:40Well, I think there was.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44Whether it was in an office building or whether it was on the farm,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47it's routine things that happen and you know about them.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51But not everyone stops to see that or realises it.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54It also feels, if there's a kind of bigger message here, right,
0:30:54 > 0:30:59maybe what strikes me is that this is about society as this big,
0:30:59 > 0:31:02quite oppressive machine, like this grid system stamping
0:31:02 > 0:31:06itself on people and turning them into these kinds of stereotypes.
0:31:07 > 0:31:09Few were more stereotyped than the women.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14In Weber's vision, they're squeezed into corners.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17Weber simply painted what she saw.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23Looking around your work, it looks like women had various roles,
0:31:23 > 0:31:27they could be secretaries, they could be naked, they could be brides.
0:31:30 > 0:31:32But, Weber was determined to become a painter.
0:31:34 > 0:31:36In the first years of her career,
0:31:36 > 0:31:38she came across another young artist.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41His name was Andy Warhol.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44I thought he was very sweet, a crazy guy. He was terrific.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48And I liked his work, I thought he really did some interesting stuff.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51Although I was in a contest with him...
0:31:51 > 0:31:53a drawing contest.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56And I got second place, Warhol got first place.
0:31:56 > 0:31:58- That must have been annoying. - Well, it was.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03As young artists, Weber and Warhol were desperate for a break.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07Finding a gallery was essential.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11I had my portfolio and I went to various galleries hoping
0:32:11 > 0:32:13they would show some of the work.
0:32:13 > 0:32:19And I went to Stable Gallery, which was a wonderful gallery at the time.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22And the woman who ran it was quite intelligent, I think.
0:32:22 > 0:32:24- This is Eleanor Ward.- Yeah.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28And she popped up... "We don't show women."
0:32:28 > 0:32:30- Did she explain her reason when she said that?- No.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33She just said, "We don't show women," that was it?
0:32:33 > 0:32:36Yeah, and the worst part of all in that rejection and others is,
0:32:36 > 0:32:40I couldn't argue. When it comes to acquiring,
0:32:40 > 0:32:43they will always take the male picture,
0:32:43 > 0:32:46even if it was exactly the same.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49Because you don't get as much for female stuff.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53And they just didn't have the cache that the men's stuff had.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59Sure enough, a couple of months later,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02the Stable Gallery gave a young male artist his first break.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05Weber's rival, Andy Warhol.
0:33:09 > 0:33:11When Weber made her best known work,
0:33:11 > 0:33:14Munchkins, Warhol popped in to see it.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19And he's looking at it, he's looking at it, he's looking at it.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22And he said, "You know, Idelle, there are rollers.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25"You know these new rollers that are out?
0:33:25 > 0:33:28"All you have to do is cut squares in them and you can go really fast."
0:33:28 > 0:33:32You know I was doing them one by one by one...
0:33:32 > 0:33:36and he said, "You know, that would make them look the same."
0:33:36 > 0:33:39And I said, "No." And he said, "Well, what's the problem?"
0:33:39 > 0:33:42And I said, "Nuance, Andy, nuance."
0:33:42 > 0:33:44Cos those squares were all done by hand.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46But he was so funny, he was trying to help me.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52# Girls were made
0:33:52 > 0:33:57# To take care of boys... #
0:34:00 > 0:34:04It's hard to know if the male artists truly saw the women as equals.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08Lichtenstein's most famous paintings were inspired by comic books,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11and they satirise rigid gender stereotypes.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15At least I hope they do.
0:34:15 > 0:34:21Because at face value, his feeble women could seem rather misogynistic.
0:34:22 > 0:34:24I'm heading to meet somebody that I hope
0:34:24 > 0:34:27is really going to shed some light on the whole pop scene.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30Because back in the '60s, she was an artist in her own right.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33The thing is, nobody really remembers that now.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38Instead, she's kind of known as a consort to one of pop art's big five,
0:34:38 > 0:34:41because for several years, she was the girlfriend of Roy Lichtenstein.
0:34:44 > 0:34:49Today, Letty Lou Eisenhauer is a student counsellor
0:34:49 > 0:34:51at a college in New York City.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53In the '60s, she lived with Lichtenstein
0:34:53 > 0:34:56during the crucial period when he shot to fame.
0:34:56 > 0:34:58I brought you something.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00- Did you?- Yes, I thought you would like this.
0:35:00 > 0:35:02Ah, comics!
0:35:02 > 0:35:05These are some of the ones that he cut up.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08Seriously, these are the sources? Yes, Men Of War!
0:35:08 > 0:35:12He did a whole series based on Men Of War...All-American Men Of War.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15There are ones you can see that he's cut out...
0:35:15 > 0:35:20- Look at this.- Yeah, there. He cut out whatever that thing was.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23I didn't realise he would use one comic so intensively.
0:35:23 > 0:35:25Well, there...
0:35:25 > 0:35:29he liked certain comics, that was, you know, very clear.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32There were certain ones that he was much more attached to.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35During their relationship,
0:35:35 > 0:35:38Eisenhauer witnessed the pop movement taking flight.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Although an artist herself, she wasn't considered an equal.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48There was a bar that the artists all went to from the pop period,
0:35:48 > 0:35:53and I remember once Claes and Tom Wesselmann and you know,
0:35:53 > 0:35:55a whole group of male artists, standing in a little,
0:35:55 > 0:35:59tight-knit group, chatting and talking about art.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02And I remember feeling like this little kid running around
0:36:02 > 0:36:05the outside going, "Hey, pay attention, whoo!
0:36:05 > 0:36:06"Hey, I'm here too, whoo!"
0:36:06 > 0:36:12Women, you know, we were there, but we were there either as helpers
0:36:12 > 0:36:16and/or maybe as objects.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21Eisenhauer became known as a performance artist,
0:36:21 > 0:36:24and regularly staged experimental happenings.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26Sometimes, without her clothes...
0:36:28 > 0:36:32- Who is this?- That's me. - Is it you? Amazing.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35- What the hell's going on? You're covered in cream?- Whipped cream.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38And then, of course, the piece was called Lick, it's the obvious...
0:36:38 > 0:36:41People did genuinely come and lick the cream off?
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Well, nobody had the guts to get up and come lick me.
0:36:44 > 0:36:45- Really?- No.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48'Whether people licked her or not,
0:36:48 > 0:36:52'Roy Lichtenstein hated his girlfriend's nude performances.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55'But Eisenhauer had a plan to keep him happy.'
0:36:55 > 0:36:58That's so weird! I have to say,
0:36:58 > 0:37:04this feels so surreal. I was not expecting this, at all.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09This was to accommodate Roy, who didn't want me to go out
0:37:09 > 0:37:11and be naked any more in public.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13What, so he accepted this?
0:37:13 > 0:37:17Cos this is totally like above... You know, this is respectable(!)
0:37:17 > 0:37:20- SHE LAUGHS - Right! I mean, it's ridiculous.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23He may have been a prude,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27but Lichtenstein did encourage Eisenhauer's pop paintings.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29Today, they've all been lost,
0:37:29 > 0:37:32and this is one of the few press clippings she owns.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Her painting isn't even in the foreground.
0:37:36 > 0:37:40Why did you stop making work like that?
0:37:40 > 0:37:44I guess because I didn't get very much response to it, you know,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47and probably that was the case for most women.
0:37:47 > 0:37:53I think that the art world has traditionally been a male world.
0:37:53 > 0:37:58I would want to take a survey of all the gallery owners...
0:37:58 > 0:38:02you know, and find out who were they showing?
0:38:02 > 0:38:04What were they showing at this period of time?
0:38:08 > 0:38:12In 1960, the clique of dealers and art critics that ruled
0:38:12 > 0:38:16the New York art market was joined by a new gallery, PACE.
0:38:19 > 0:38:25Unusually, in its 1964 pop art show, The International Girlie Exhibit,
0:38:25 > 0:38:27almost half the works were by women.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33One of them was Rosalyn Drexler, who today is best known as a writer.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38"She had no hair below the roundness of her stomach."
0:38:39 > 0:38:40It's an intriguing line.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46Submissions Of A Female Wrestler is a riveting read.
0:38:48 > 0:38:50The thing I find amazing about this book isn't so much
0:38:50 > 0:38:52that Rosalyn Drexler wrote it,
0:38:52 > 0:38:55it's that she based it on first-hand experience
0:38:55 > 0:38:59because in the early '50s she toured the country as a wrestler herself.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03Professionally, she was known as Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13The 1950s saw a wrestling boom,
0:39:13 > 0:39:16with flocks of women trying their luck in the ring.
0:39:18 > 0:39:23Rosalyn Drexler was one of them, a young housewife, who, in 1950,
0:39:23 > 0:39:26left her husband and daughter for three months on the road.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Life as a wrestler took her south.
0:39:31 > 0:39:36Families, children, mothers, fathers, grandparents,
0:39:36 > 0:39:37they all loved it.
0:39:37 > 0:39:39Because it was good against evil.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43You know, it's a basic story.
0:39:43 > 0:39:44Did you enjoy it?
0:39:44 > 0:39:46No. I hated it.
0:39:46 > 0:39:51# Oh, Lord... Oh, Lord... #
0:39:55 > 0:39:58Away from New York, Drexler encountered
0:39:58 > 0:40:00a different side of America.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04One that was brutal and racist.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07It was a world apart from anything I had known.
0:40:07 > 0:40:08The big card,
0:40:08 > 0:40:09the advertisement card,
0:40:09 > 0:40:14on the card it said, "Special section for coloured folk."
0:40:14 > 0:40:16I said, "Special section?"
0:40:16 > 0:40:23And then the water fountains, white only, the toilets, white only.
0:40:23 > 0:40:27I mean, all...I said, "What is this, what is happening?
0:40:27 > 0:40:30I don't want to be here." And I left.
0:40:34 > 0:40:36Drexler returned to her family,
0:40:36 > 0:40:39but the ghosts of what she'd seen stayed with her.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44By the mid '60s, her dark insights into America
0:40:44 > 0:40:48would produce some of the most unsettling paintings in pop.
0:40:50 > 0:40:54What's so surprising is that she never went to art school.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59I never learned to draw or paint, any of that stuff.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02I had to find a way to do what I wanted to do.
0:41:02 > 0:41:07And that's why I turned to the media using photographs and posters.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13Drexler took the photographs and posters
0:41:13 > 0:41:15and painted directly on top of them.
0:41:18 > 0:41:23What started as necessity evolved into a distinctive style all her own.
0:41:25 > 0:41:27You're burying the image. It's like the undead.
0:41:27 > 0:41:33I suppose...my work is like the undead...buried!
0:41:35 > 0:41:38Drawing upon the torrent of commercial imagery,
0:41:38 > 0:41:42Drexler created her own vision of the world,
0:41:42 > 0:41:44painting not media sensation,
0:41:44 > 0:41:45but psychological depth.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50This is a really creepy image involving Marilyn Monroe
0:41:50 > 0:41:52with some man skulking behind.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56Yes. It's not a man skulking behind, it's her inner fear of...
0:41:56 > 0:41:58of being pursued by death.
0:42:01 > 0:42:05Marilyn had obsessive compulsive disorder, and was terrified of dying.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13This photograph shows the aftermath of a fatal car crash
0:42:13 > 0:42:15on the estate of Arthur Miller.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20Marilyn became hysterical
0:42:20 > 0:42:24and started to run, her security guard in hot pursuit.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29You've seen something here which is much deeper and darker
0:42:29 > 0:42:32than perhaps most people would spot, because looking at her,
0:42:32 > 0:42:35she doesn't look...she looks like she's trying to move away
0:42:35 > 0:42:38and she's moving quickly, but it doesn't look so apocalyptic.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42But she was running because it was apocalyptic.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46Nobody else cares. They all think, "Oh, it's great, Marilyn's running."
0:42:48 > 0:42:52The darkness Drexler saw in the media reflected the times.
0:42:55 > 0:42:59Civil unrest, violence and political uncertainty.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05Drexler's painting, Is It True What They Say About Dixie?
0:43:05 > 0:43:08is named after a song about the beauty of the South.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13# Is it true what they say about Dixie?
0:43:13 > 0:43:18# Does the sun really shine all the time?
0:43:18 > 0:43:22# Do the sweet magnolias blossom at everybody's door
0:43:22 > 0:43:27# Do the folks keep eating possum till they can't eat no more? #
0:43:28 > 0:43:30The painting's title is ironic.
0:43:32 > 0:43:36It shows white supremacist, Eugene Bull Connor,
0:43:36 > 0:43:38police chief of Birmingham, Alabama,
0:43:38 > 0:43:43who during the Civil Rights era became a symbol of racism.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45He had a very bad reputation, evil man,
0:43:45 > 0:43:52and was responsible for a lot of deaths and attacks on Black people.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54Very hateful human being.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58The thing I love about this is that the mob has become this unified mass
0:43:58 > 0:44:01- because the black is linking everything.- Yes, yes.
0:44:01 > 0:44:03So it's like this creature with all these different limbs
0:44:03 > 0:44:06- and it's very intimidating. - Yes, it is intimidating, it...
0:44:06 > 0:44:10Just their being there is intimidating.
0:44:10 > 0:44:14Drexler's paintings were included in important early pop art shows.
0:44:14 > 0:44:18In the 1964 exhibition here at PACE Gallery,
0:44:18 > 0:44:21she held her own with the men.
0:44:22 > 0:44:25This is a list of some of the artists who exhibited there.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27- You've got people like Lichtenstein, right?- Yes.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30- Big names, Tom Wesselmann.- Right.
0:44:30 > 0:44:31Andy Warhol.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33These are the big male artists,
0:44:33 > 0:44:37and then Rosalyn Drexler, one, two, three, four, five, six works.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43The men in the show would soon become central figures
0:44:43 > 0:44:45in the emerging pop art canon.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49But Drexler was excluded.
0:44:50 > 0:44:53I wanted to ask you about how you felt at the time
0:44:53 > 0:44:54when this was happening.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00You're asking me to understand what I felt 50 years ago?
0:45:00 > 0:45:03That's exactly what I'm asking.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05Who the hell knows?
0:45:05 > 0:45:08I can't go back and say put me in the hierarchy.
0:45:10 > 0:45:11Too late now.
0:45:13 > 0:45:17According to critics and curators, Drexler's paintings
0:45:17 > 0:45:20were too passionate, too painterly to be pop.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25By the late '60s, a strict set of rules was in place,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28that defined what was pop art and what was not.
0:45:29 > 0:45:34I think it came from the galleries and the critics in tandem.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37I think that they're trying to define a style in order to
0:45:37 > 0:45:41kind of get leverage, in order to promote it into the market place.
0:45:43 > 0:45:47Artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein wanted to create art
0:45:47 > 0:45:50so flat and detached, that it could have been made,
0:45:50 > 0:45:52not by a hand, but by a machine.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57Warhol gets that image and then makes a silk screen
0:45:57 > 0:45:59and then replicates that silk screen.
0:45:59 > 0:46:03There's...there's five stages away from Marilyn...
0:46:03 > 0:46:08and that removal process is a chilling process,
0:46:08 > 0:46:13it's not expressionistic, it's analytic.
0:46:13 > 0:46:15And they're trying to remove that hand and trying
0:46:15 > 0:46:19to remove the emotion. OK, so that defines pop art a certain way.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24Full of visible brushstrokes,
0:46:24 > 0:46:28Drexler's works are too obviously hand painted to count as pure pop.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33For other female artists, it was a similar story.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36They don't fit neatly and tightly
0:46:36 > 0:46:40into a circumscribed definition of the movement.
0:46:40 > 0:46:43And when that happens, and critics and curators
0:46:43 > 0:46:46can't neatly place them in those categories,
0:46:46 > 0:46:49they would just rather not deal with them.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53Drexler's recent paintings are held in storage.
0:46:55 > 0:46:57This is the first time she has seen her later works
0:46:57 > 0:46:59on the walls of a gallery.
0:47:01 > 0:47:03You said before you were looking at the '60s work
0:47:03 > 0:47:05and you felt really proud.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07How do you feel when you look at these paintings?
0:47:07 > 0:47:10Well, I'm so glad I did them. I'm very happy.
0:47:10 > 0:47:16I feel that they're successful or I would have destroyed them.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19I think there's a link between your work
0:47:19 > 0:47:22and then that sort of darker side of Warhol.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26There's a whole strand of pop which is...which is scathing,
0:47:26 > 0:47:31critical, strong, quite stern about the world that those artists
0:47:31 > 0:47:35see around them, and I feel that your work fits into that.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37Thank you. Thank you.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40- To be honest...- Yes?
0:47:40 > 0:47:43I'm just really thrilled to have met you today and to have seen
0:47:43 > 0:47:47the paintings in this situation, in this gallery, like a private view.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49It's been really special for me, so thank you.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Thank you very much. Then I shouldn't go home and kill myself.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54Please don't.
0:48:04 > 0:48:10It's quite easy to find pop art slightly...inane sometimes,
0:48:10 > 0:48:14maybe a bit flat, a bit superficial, but her art isn't superficial at all
0:48:14 > 0:48:19because she's looking at America, she's finding fault with it,
0:48:19 > 0:48:23there's a moral centre to it, which is compelling
0:48:23 > 0:48:25because it feels authentic and real.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30I was really quite...in awe of her at the end, actually.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33I felt like I'd met someone who was wise.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36A really great artist.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47Work by female pop artists hasn't been easy to find.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53At New York's Museum of Modern Art, there's a notable exception.
0:48:56 > 0:49:00The artist known as Marisol was famed for her exotic beauty
0:49:00 > 0:49:02and sophistication.
0:49:05 > 0:49:11Born in Paris to Venezuelan parents, she arrived in New York City in 1950.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18Six years later, when she was still only 25,
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Marisol's early sculptures were shown here
0:49:21 > 0:49:26alongside work by Picasso, Duchamp, Johns, and Rauschenberg.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34In 1963, she was back in MoMA's first major pop art show.
0:49:37 > 0:49:40Then, her work filled an entire room.
0:49:42 > 0:49:48Today, MoMA owns 28 of her works, but only two are on display.
0:49:51 > 0:49:56I'm quite excited because I've never actually seen any works
0:49:56 > 0:49:57by Marisol for real.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00This is the first time I've seen one of her sculptures,
0:50:00 > 0:50:02and this is a piece from 1962 called Love.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06And it's a Coke bottle being shoved into
0:50:06 > 0:50:10a plaster cast of a woman's face, Marisol's own.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13And it's quite a brutal piece, really.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17Marisol is making a joke about the fact that this consumerist culture,
0:50:17 > 0:50:20this capitalist abundance, is being, literally in this case,
0:50:20 > 0:50:22shoved down our throats.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25It's a piece of satire, and it works effectively
0:50:25 > 0:50:27because it's both disturbing,
0:50:27 > 0:50:30but also weirdly, and don't judge me for saying this,
0:50:30 > 0:50:32but slightly amusing.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Marisol is on show in the permanent collection,
0:50:41 > 0:50:43sharing the space with pop art's chosen few.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47But she's hardly the main attraction.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50Everybody, they've got their phones out,
0:50:50 > 0:50:55they're just interested in Marilyn by that pesky Andy Warhol.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01I don't know, what's he got that she hasn't?
0:51:03 > 0:51:06In the 1960s, it was a different story.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11Marisol was the only female artist who could command
0:51:11 > 0:51:14the same kind of prices as the men.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18Her work was playful...
0:51:19 > 0:51:20..witty.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25It satirised politicians...
0:51:25 > 0:51:27celebrities...
0:51:27 > 0:51:28and society.
0:51:29 > 0:51:34She made elaborate self-portraits and casts of her own face.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39And people were desperate to know about the woman behind the mask.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44But, Marisol was determined to remain a mystery.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48She's constantly referred to as an enigma.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51She's probably one of the hardest interviews
0:51:51 > 0:51:53I've ever done in my life.
0:51:53 > 0:51:57It was almost like pulling teeth to get her to talk.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17When she was 11 years old, her mother committed suicide,
0:52:17 > 0:52:21and she did not speak for a whole year.
0:52:21 > 0:52:26She sort of had this pattern of not speaking
0:52:26 > 0:52:29well into her 20s, and by the time she finally decides
0:52:29 > 0:52:31to start speaking, she says
0:52:31 > 0:52:34she doesn't think she has anything to say.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40Marisol became known as the sphinx without a riddle,
0:52:40 > 0:52:42and today she is as much a mystery as ever.
0:52:45 > 0:52:48In her 80s, she hasn't been interviewed in years.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54Her silence has always added to her glamorous allure.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59And for me, this can't be an accident.
0:53:02 > 0:53:05This is a Marisol interview from 1968.
0:53:07 > 0:53:12You're such a marvellous observer of people.
0:53:12 > 0:53:15Would you like to say a few words
0:53:15 > 0:53:21on what is a background for this understanding of...
0:53:21 > 0:53:22of subject matter?
0:53:27 > 0:53:31Um...I can't explain it.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35You can't explain it. Not that way?
0:53:36 > 0:53:38It is a disaster, this interview.
0:53:38 > 0:53:40It's...
0:53:40 > 0:53:43It is painful to listen to this because
0:53:43 > 0:53:46she refuses to say anything at all.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49It must have been an act,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52it must have been part of her persona.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56We know she was very media savvy, she appeared in all of these reviews,
0:53:56 > 0:53:59and all these profiles, she was controlling her image,
0:53:59 > 0:54:02and this was another way of controlling that image.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05And the person I think who learnt from this
0:54:05 > 0:54:10and took it to the next level, if you like, was Andy Warhol,
0:54:10 > 0:54:15because he must have seen the way Marisol behaved and then he, too,
0:54:15 > 0:54:20imitated that flat deadpan delivery to the point where, in his own words,
0:54:20 > 0:54:22he could come across like a machine.
0:54:22 > 0:54:28So, this way of speaking, which I think Marisol arguably pioneered,
0:54:28 > 0:54:33is something that became a central mode of behaviour, if you like,
0:54:33 > 0:54:36for the most famous pop artist of them all.
0:54:38 > 0:54:40So, why did you decide to paint the electric chair?
0:54:42 > 0:54:45Uh...I don't know.
0:54:46 > 0:54:51Andy Warhol picks Andy Warhol, that persona, from Marisol...
0:54:51 > 0:54:54that's Marisol's influence. Andy Warhol wasn't that person.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58He had to invent that, and that invention comes from Marisol.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01Andy, do you think that pop art has sort of reached the point
0:55:01 > 0:55:05- where it's becoming repetitious now? - Uh, yes.
0:55:05 > 0:55:07They were really very close friends, I think
0:55:07 > 0:55:11they were very similar personalities.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13Their silence, and then when they did talk,
0:55:13 > 0:55:17the things that they did say were expressed in a way
0:55:17 > 0:55:19to attract the most attention.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22It's almost like she's a female version of him, in some senses.
0:55:22 > 0:55:24I wouldn't argue with that.
0:55:26 > 0:55:27She was important.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30She was part of the fabric of New York City.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33She was it. She was the "it" girl of pop art.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38And like any "it" girl, Marisol made the news.
0:55:40 > 0:55:42One person says, "A Latin Garbo."
0:55:42 > 0:55:47She appeared in the pages of Harper's Bazaar, she was in Vogue...
0:55:47 > 0:55:50There's this review, Brian O'Doherty, this is New York Times,
0:55:50 > 0:55:551964, and it's a review of her exhibition and it was a blockbuster.
0:55:55 > 0:55:57It was a total knockout.
0:55:57 > 0:56:01Apparently there were 2,000 or more people every single day
0:56:01 > 0:56:04visiting the gallery, which is just unprecedented.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07At this point, she was more famous than Andy Warhol.
0:56:08 > 0:56:11Marisol's work was a hit with the critics,
0:56:11 > 0:56:12but it was adored by the public.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18I mean, there's this wonderful quote about the fact that everybody went,
0:56:18 > 0:56:20including mothers with five children.
0:56:20 > 0:56:22Her work was extremely accessible.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26How does she compare to the greats of pop art, people like Lichtenstein
0:56:26 > 0:56:28or Warhol or Wesselmann?
0:56:28 > 0:56:30Well, if you want my personal opinion,
0:56:30 > 0:56:33I actually like her better than Lichtenstein
0:56:33 > 0:56:38and Wesselmann. I mean, I think she can hold her own with Andy Warhol.
0:56:38 > 0:56:39So, what went wrong?
0:56:41 > 0:56:44Her career heats up, she kind of has a little freak out.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48She goes to Italy and lives there for about a year and a half.
0:56:48 > 0:56:50How come?
0:56:50 > 0:56:52She sort of felt like she was out of control,
0:56:52 > 0:56:56she was having trouble sort of hanging on to her...you know,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59figuring out who she was or what she was doing.
0:56:59 > 0:57:04And when she comes back, she suffers as many other women artists do,
0:57:04 > 0:57:06of having been female.
0:57:06 > 0:57:10She still continued to make really strong important work
0:57:10 > 0:57:13and yet, it's like she disappeared off the face of the earth.
0:57:15 > 0:57:16She's not the only one.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21Go to a pop show today...
0:57:22 > 0:57:25..and the great legacy of the female artists is barely visible.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35To me, it's an oversight we can no longer afford.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42The artists I've encountered depicted a newly consumerist,
0:57:42 > 0:57:46media-saturated world... the world in which we now live.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53They asked questions about gender, politics and capitalism
0:57:53 > 0:57:56that today seem more pertinent than ever.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01If I'm honest, at the outset I did worry a little bit
0:58:01 > 0:58:04that women pop artists may have been largely forgotten
0:58:04 > 0:58:07because their work wasn't actually any good, but meeting them has been
0:58:07 > 0:58:09a really powerful experience for me,
0:58:09 > 0:58:13because I can now say with confidence that that simply wasn't the case.
0:58:13 > 0:58:16I think it's time we started paying these artists the attention
0:58:16 > 0:58:19they deserve because once their work is back in the frame,
0:58:19 > 0:58:22the wider picture of pop art becomes that bit richer,
0:58:22 > 0:58:26that bit more complex, and ultimately, much more exciting.
0:58:32 > 0:58:35# You've been gone too long
0:58:36 > 0:58:39# You've been gone too long
0:58:39 > 0:58:43# Oh, you've been gone too long
0:58:43 > 0:58:45# You've been gone
0:58:45 > 0:58:50# Much too long. #