When Sotheby’s offered Peter Blake’s painting “Valentine (for Pauline Boty)” for auction in 2019, they described the two artists as “inseparable.” The work sold for £287,500—a significant sum for what appeared to be a simple valentine. But this wasn’t just any love token. It was evidence of a relationship that would shape Blake’s emotional life and set a pattern of loss that would haunt him for decades.

Robert Fraser opened his famous art gallery at 69 Duke Street in London in 1962 and attracted the cream of pop art artists to the gallery’s roster: Richard Hamilton, Derek Boshier, Peter Blake, Colin Self and Jann Haworth. Fraser’s gallery attracted visitors from the world of film, music and art. He was the first to show American pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Jim Dine in London. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were gallery regulars—Robert Fraser helped Paul McCartney build his art collection.

There was one English pop artist who wasn’t represented by Groovy Bob Fraser. She was Pauline Boty (1938-1966), a polymath: pop artist, poet, radio programme host, actress and dancer. You could have seen her bopping to the music on TV’s “Ready, Steady, Go”. She studied at the Royal College of Art from 1958-61 alongside Peter Blake, David Hockney and Derek Boshier.

Wikipedia describes her as “the heartbreaker of the sixties art scene. Talented and outspoken, she was loved by countless men…” Boty and Blake became inseparable. Between 1959-60, Blake painted a valentine for her, simply titled “Valentine (for Pauline Boty)”.

There’s Lewis Morley’s famous photograph of Pauline holding the Valentine painting.

Boty and Jann Haworth were the only two women among the pop artists at the time. Haworth, like Blake, was represented by Robert Fraser and had solo shows at his gallery as well as a joint exhibition with Peter Blake, Derek Boshier and Colin Self.But Boty’s romantic life was complicated. She was having an affair with TV director Philip Saville (who was already married) while involved with Blake. Then in June 1963, after a whirlwind ten-day romance, she married literary agent Clive Goodwin. Blake—and Saville—must have been devastated.

Blake’s response was swift. Just one month later, in July 1963, he married the other female pop artist, Jann Haworth, whom he had met at a party while she was a student at the Slade School of Art. Another whirlwind romance. The newlyweds immediately left for an extended honeymoon in California, where Jann’s father, Academy Award-winning art director Ted Haworth, lent them his Stingray sports car. They drove to Malibu listening to the Beach Boys, and Ted got Blake access to a film studio storeroom filled with props from the Elizabeth Taylor film Cleopatra. They were still in California in November when President Kennedy was assassinated.

Pauline Boty’s remarkable artistic and acting career ended abruptly when, in 1965 while pregnant, she developed a malignant tumour. Boty refused abortion and treatment as it would harm the foetus. Her daughter Katy was born on 12th February 1966, and Pauline died on 1st July, aged only 28. The “Valentine” painting passed to her husband Clive Goodwin until his death in 1977. It was later acquired by art collector Muriel Wilson (1933-2018), who donated it to the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester along with many other works from her collection.

Blake and Haworth remained together for sixteen years, founding the Brotherhood of Ruralists in 1975. But in 1979, history repeated itself. Haworth met author Richard Severy and left Blake. Devastated, Blake left Somerset and the Ruralists and returned to London. He was reported to have been unable to work for almost a year after this separation—a testament to how deeply the loss affected him.

When the Valentine painting came up for sale at Sotheby’s in 2019, it was featured in an article titled “Unrequited Love and Peter Blake’s Pop Art Valentine.” But the image had clearly stayed with Blake. Sixty-five years after its creation, it reappeared on the cover of Band Aid 40’s 2024 single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”—suggesting that his feelings for Boty, and that moment in time, had never entirely left him.

There’s another possible legacy of Blake’s relationship with Boty that art historians may have overlooked. Boty was herself an accomplished collage artist. While the textbooks credit Joseph Cornell and Kurt Schwitters as Blake’s influences in collage, perhaps the woman who was ‘inseparable’ from him during those formative years played a more significant role than history has acknowledged. It wouldn’t be the first time a male artist’s female partner influenced his work without receiving credit.

Blake met artist Chrissy Wilson in 1980, soon after returning to London, and they married in 1987 after his divorce from Haworth was finalized in 1981. They are still together after more than 40 years—perhaps Blake had finally found lasting love.

Haworth and Severy remained together until Severy’s death..