Pauline Boty was a sometimes actress and the only female Pop artist from Britain. She is considered to be one of the founders of the Brit pop art movement. In 1954, Pauline, the fourth child and only daughter of a suburban Surrey couple, won a scholarship to Wimbledon art school. Her gorgeous blonde looks got her the nickname "the Wimbledon Bardot" by her peers. Pauline studied stained glass at the Royal College of Art and graduated in 1961. She developed a style of painting that Pauline often paired with collage, and represented messages of female empowerment and sexuality and criticism of male-dominance.
As well as being a colleague and friend to some of the greatest artists in Britain during this time (including David Hockney, Peter Phillips, Peter Blake, and Derek Boshier), Pauline acted as an occasional model for these artists as well, posing for Michael Seymour, John Aston, and Michael Ward, among others. Alongside Phillips, Blake, and Boshier, Pauline was featured in the 1962 television program "Pop Goes the Easel," which documented Britain's leading pop artists. She was an occasional actress, active in theatre and television as well as portraying one of the many girlfriends of Michael Caine in the 1966 movie "Alfie." She was in the running for the lead part in "Darling," eventually played by Julie Christie. Pauline married writer and actor Clive Goodwin in 1963 and together they had a daughter, Boty Goodwin (who was also an artist and died in 1995 at the age of 29), in 1966. While she was pregnant, Pauline discovered that she had a rare case of lymphatic cancer. Doctors warned that if she were to treat the cancer with radiation, her unborn child would be gravely endangered. Pauline opted to go without radiation treatment, and unfortunately passed away only five months after her daughter's birth. She was 28 years old.