30 Tuesday Sep 2025
Posted in Art and Photography, Marilyn Monroe
≈ Comments Off on Angels of Pop: Marilyn and Rosalyn Drexler
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Arthur Miller, Clark Gable, Connecticut, Cornell Capa, Homage to Marilyn Monroe, Ira Slade, Kermit Miller, Mara Scherbatoff, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Pursued by Death, New York, Paris Match, Pop Art, Rosalyn Drexler, Roxbury, Sidney Janis Gallery, Something's Got To Give, The Misfits
Rosalyn Drexler, a pioneer of the Pop Art movement – and one of the first women to paint Marilyn Monroe – has died aged 98. Continue reading
14 Sunday Sep 2025
Posted in Art and Photography, Film, Periodicals
≈ Comments Off on Hollywood or Bust: Remembering June Wilkinson
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Blonde Bombshell, Eastbourne, Elvis Presley, Francis Ford Coppola, John Cassavetes, June Wilkinson, Mamie Van Doren, Marilyn Monroe, Playboy, Russ Meyer, Seven Arts Productions, Sex Symbols, Sexploitation
June Wilkinson, who has died aged 85, was a British-born showgirl who became a popular Playboy model and B-movie starlet after crossing the Atlantic in 1958. One of the most curvaceous blonde bombshells, June fought to prove herself as more than just another pin-up – and in an echo of Marilyn Monroe’s romance with Joe DiMaggio, she also married (and divorced) a famous athlete. During a lengthy, unconventional career, she reinvented herself as a stage diva, cable TV broadcaster, and fitness guru.
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03 Friday Jan 2025
Posted in Art and Photography, Books, Fiction, History, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2024: A Year in Books
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2024, A Year in Books, Alex Grant, Amy Helen Bell, Avril Horner, Barbara Comyns, Bastard Out of Carolina, Bristol, Brooklyn, Carol Ann Lee, Civil War, Cold War, Colm Toibin, Dorothy Allison, Dust Bowl, Edna O'Brien, Eilis Lacey, Gayl Jones, Highland Clearances, Huckleberry Finn, Ingrid Persaud, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Irish Literature, James, Jayne Ann Phillips, John Steinbeck, John Vassall, Kate Summerscale, Kevin Barry, Lancashire Witches, London, Long Island, Marc Kristal, Mark Twain, Mrs Gulliver, Native American Literature, Night Watch, Novella, Paula Spencer, Pauline Boty, Pendle Witches, Percival Everett, Pop Art, Profumo Affair, Pulitzer Prize, Reginald Christie, Rillington Place, Roddy Doyle, Sam Selvon, Sanora Babb, Scotland, Short Stories, Slavery, Sunjeev Sahota, Tessa Hadley, The Country Girls, The Heart in Winter, The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh, The Party, The Peepshow, The Spoiled Heart, The Unicorn Woman, The Women Behind the Door, Toni Morrison, Trinidad, True Crime, Under Cover of Darkness, Valerie Martin, Ways of Sunlight, Western, Windrush, Witchcraft, World War II
Marilyn Monroe reads Walt Whitman (Photo by John Florea)
For me, 2024 was a nebulous year when literary favourites returned but the best novels came from unexpected quarters. It was perhaps a stronger year for non-fiction, particularly when exploring the lives of creative women. Continue reading
22 Friday Mar 2024
Posted in Art and Photography, Documentaries, Marilyn Monroe
≈ Comments Off on Pauline Boty’s Epitaph to Marilyn Sold at Christie’s
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Ali Smith, Christie’s, Epitaph to Something’s Gotta Give, Marilyn Monroe, Market Harborough, Pauline Boty, Pop Art
Epitaph to Something’s Gotta Give – a 1962 painting by British pop artist Pauline Boty – was sold for £1,310,500 at Christie’s in London this week. It was one of three works inspired by Marilyn Monroe, whose influence I’ve discussed here – and the highest price reached for the late artist’s work to date. Continue reading
13 Tuesday Feb 2024
Posted in Art and Photography, Marilyn Monroe, Periodicals, Poetry
≈ Comments Off on Gone Ladies: Marilyn and Pauline Boty
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Art Decades, Bruce Davidson, Christie’s, Christopher Gregory, Christopher Logue, Colour Her Gone, Epitaph to Something’s Gotta Give, Gazelli Art House, George Barris, Gone Ladies, John Aston, Lawrence Schiller, Life Magazine, Marc Kristal, Marilyn in Beads, Marilyn Monroe, My Colouring Book, Pauline Boty, Picture Show, Pop Art, Richard Avedon, Some Like It Hot, Something's Got To Give, Sue Tate, Tara Hanks, The Only Blonde in the World, Town Magazine
At left, Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon, 1959; and at right, Pauline Boty by John Aston, 1962
Pauline Boty was an English pop artist who created three paintings of Marilyn before her death from cancer, aged 28, in 1966. Although neglected for many years, Boty’s work is now being rediscovered – and in March, one of her Marilyn portraits will go under the hammer at Christie’s, as Joe Dziemianowicz reports for Barron’s Magazine. Continue reading
Tara Hanks 
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