Fragmented Voices: The Parallel Lives and Artistic Visions of Ketty La Rocca and Pauline Boty
Written by Lorena Orlacchio


Italian artist Ketty La Rocca (1938–1976) and British artist Pauline Boty (1938–1966) may never have met, but their lives share striking parallels. Both were born in 1938, carved out remarkable careers tackling themes of femininity and sexuality, and critiqued the ‘man’s world’ of their time, and both left us tragically young. Despite their accomplishments, they are still not as widely known as they should be.[1]
Growing up in post-war Europe and carving out their careers in the 1960s, both artists faced significant challenges. The art world of the time was overwhelmingly male-dominated, with few opportunities for women to establish themselves. Both Britain and Italy in the 1960s were defined by patriarchal institutions and cultural norms that excluded women from many cultural, political, and social spheres.[2]
Still, La Rocca and Boty found clever ways to speak up. Both drew heavily on the imagery and language of mass media, re-using magazine photographs and commercial slogans in their work. By reworking elements from women’s magazines or advertisements and recontextualizing them, they compelled viewers to pause, think, and question societal norms. They used this technique to highlight how ambiguous language, and imagery could be and to challenge society’s outdated ideas about gender roles in the sixties.[3]
Ketty La Rocca is one of the few Italian women artists of her time to gain international recognition among feminist critics and practitioners. Her 1960s collages explore how mass media shaped people’s perception of the world. In Trazion Anteriore (1965) La Rocca juxtaposed images with text from advertising, disrupting familiar narratives to reveal underlying stereotypes and biases.[4]

La Rocca’s art tackled themes that remain strikingly relevant today: the construction of femininity, the impact of patriarchal systems, Catholic morality, and even colonial discourse. In her works, like Elettro…Addomestici (1965) the artist explored ideas of domesticity, female empowerment, self-realization, and how physical and political control was exercised over women. Her approach was direct and unapologetic, often targeting the visual and linguistic symbols of popular culture.[5]

Pauline Boty, meanwhile, was one of the founders of British Pop Art and the only female painter in the movement. Her vibrant artworks celebrated female sexuality through a woman’s lens, an unusual and radical perspective at the time. Bright colours and bold compositions set the tone of her art, with striking images of red flowers often appearing as symbols of femininity and eroticism.
Boty unabashedly turned male idols like Elvis Presley, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Derek Marlowe into sex symbols, while celebrating actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Monica Vitti with equal admiration. In many ways, her work mirrored the methods of Andy Warhol, using popular photographs of celebrities to explore ideas around fame and desire.[6]

As the 1960s unfolded, her art became increasingly political. Works like Countdown to Violence (1964) took on the major events of the day, from the Vietnam War to the Birmingham riots. Pieces like It’s a Man’s World I (1984) critiqued the male dominance of both the art world and society, cleverly juxtaposing images of men as cultural icons with subversive depictions of women reclaimed from art history or pop culture. [7]


Both La Rocca and Boty used art to challenge the systems that confined them, blending the familiar with the disruptive to provoke new ways of thinking. Their work stands as a testament to the untold stories of women who reshaped the art world while remaining strikingly relevant in today’s media-saturated culture. As mass media continues to shape perceptions of identity and gender, their reimagining of familiar imagery remains a powerful example of art’s ability to challenge societal norms and spark meaningful dialogue.
Sources:
Biagini, Elisa. "L’ossessione del linguaggio: Le prime opere di Ketty La Rocca." Italian Culture 19, no. 1 (July 18, 2001): 111–126.
Watling, Sue., Mellor, David., Boty, Pauline. Pauline Boty, 1938-1966: The Only Blonde in the World. United Kingdom: AM Publications, 1998.
Pieri, Giuliana, and Emanuela Patti. "Technological Poetry: Interconnections between Impegno, Media, and Gender in Gruppo 70 (1963–1968)." Italian Studies 72, no. 3 (July 14, 2017): 323–337.
Pieri, Giuliana. "Ketty La Rocca: Word, Image, Body." Italian Studies 74, no. 4 (August 28, 2019): 367–380.
Reckitt, Helena, and Peggy Phelan. Art and Feminism. London: Phaidon Press, 2001.
Reckitt, Helena. "Generating Feminisms: Italian Feminisms and the 'Now You Can Go' Program." Art Journal 76, no. 3 (2017).
[1] Reckitt, Helena. "Generating Feminisms: Italian Feminisms and the 'Now You Can Go' Program." Art Journal 76, no. 3 (2017), 102.
[2] Pieri, Giuliana, and Emanuela Patti. "Technological Poetry: Interconnections between Impegno, Media, and Gender in Gruppo 70 (1963–1968)." Italian Studies 72, no. 3 (July 14, 2017), 330.
[3] Biagini, Elisa. "L’ossessione del linguaggio: Le prime opere di Ketty La Rocca." Italian Culture 19, no. 1 (July 18, 2001), 116.
[4] Pieri, Giuliana. "Ketty La Rocca: Word, Image, Body." Italian Studies 74, no. 4 (August 28, 2019), 367.
[5] Pieri, "Ketty La Rocca”, 368.
[6] Watling, Sue., Mellor, David., Boty, Pauline. Pauline Boty, 1938-1966: The Only Blonde in the World. (United Kingdom: AM Publications, 1998), 21.
[7] Reckitt, Helena, and Peggy Phelan. Art and Feminism. (London: Phaidon Press, 2001).
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