A guide at The National Gallery in London, Chapman expertly navigated the audience through this avant-garde era of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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Pre-dating better known American pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, British pop artists were poised to shock, challenge notions of “high” and “low” art, and make critical commentary about the times in which they lived.

Combining traditional art practices with shameless appropriation, nothing was out of bounds, Mr Chapman said.

Comics, pop music, sex, the consumerist, post-war culture, and the advertising industry that promoted it, were particular targets.

British pop artists wanted to shock, wake people up, and satirise the materialism of “mass culture”, as it was then called.

He explained the significance of British Pop Art by highlighting the work of Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Derek Boshier and Pauline Boty.

Peter Blake, for example, designed the unforgettable album cover for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Richard Hamilton created interior scenes full of cultural references and puzzles.

Witty, transient and full of crazy juxtapositions, his work influenced the more famous Americans that followed in his footsteps.

Combining painting, drawing and collage with photography, film and installation art, Derek Boshier was a multimedia artist before the term was invented, said Mr Chapman.

But, for the audience, the life and work of Pauline Boty was the standout revelation from Paul Chapman’s talk.

A multi-talented visual artist, actor, feminist and fashion icon, Pauline (1938-1966) died of cancer aged 28.

While a well-known London figure in the 1960s, her artistic output and legacy were largely forgotten.

Many of her artworks were consigned to her brother’s Sussex farm and left rotting for decades, while contemporaries like Peter Blake and David Hockney became global stars.

Pauline Boty’s eye was unflinching, said Paul Chapman.

“The only one of the British Pop Artists to comment on the female stereotypes embedded in 50s consumerism, through her captivating works like With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo, 1962, she upended the traditional objectification of women employed by male artists for centuries, and introduced an unapologetic feminine energy and gaze.”

Pauline was radical and, as Mr Chapman concluded, “it’s wonderful to see her life and work appreciated today and honoured through a 2024 documentary called Boty, art sales of her remaining works, and a new scholarship.”

Next up for ArtsNational Coffs Coast is a presentation by Susannah Fullerton called Ten Novels That Changed The World taking place on Monday, 18 November, at 6.00pm, in the St John Paul College Theatre.

By Andrea FERRARI