The Dutch artist Saskia de Boer (b. 1945) is one of the few female protagonists of Pop Art. Since the nineteen sixties de Boer has been working with the portrait, such as those of female icons Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. Besides portraits of stars, the artist has also been preoccupied with masterpieces of European art history, and has transformed works such as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Titian’s Venus of Urbino, and Botticelli’s Primavera from the media of painting into sculptures or busts. Extreme naturalism and abstraction merge into thrilling combination in her images, which she realizes in the material fibreglass. The puppet-like reduction in size of the figures makes particularly obvious the rehearsed and artificial character of poses, such as that of the macho, the ingénue, or the femme fatale. In their being available as dolls, Dieter Honish sees a tragic aspect to the people depicted.

1995

Collage, Boxes, Poems/ Chelsea Arts Club, London

1993

Stephen Bartley Gallery, London
Marcus & Marcus Gallery, Amsterdam

1980

Anne Berthoud Gallery, London

1979

Galerie Fagel, Amsterdam

1976

Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

1973

Galerie M. E. Thelen, Köln

1972

Galerie M. E. Thelen, Köln

1971

Idea Books, London