Pauline Smith (artist)

In the early 1970s she began to create mail art after she met Opal L. Nations and was invited to join the Global Infantilism group.

Her work had a strong anti-establishment theme and her regular despatches included Lost Marbles Dump, which commented on property developers in Chelsea, and A Present From Belfast about the conflict in Northern Ireland.

In 1974[3] she founded the Adolf Hitler Fan Club, of which she was probably the only member, and around the same time created an Adolf Hitler Memorial Fund collecting tin, in order to test the limits of free speech, provoke a reaction, and make an ironic and satirical comment on life in pre-Thatcher Britain.

[1] In 1983, she explained in her c.v.: The ADOLF HITLER FAN CLUB was intended to be an analogy for the week-kneed [sic] British Governments since 1945 and was stimulated by local Chelsea politics regarding landlords/tenants/development/tourism, in which I was interested in the early seventies.

"[2] Extinctions was a series of 14 colour Xerox prints of inscribed photographs inspired by her interest in nature and animal forces.

[2] She created oil paintings from Second World War photographs and carved some ivory figures in order to undermine demand for the material.

The Tate Gallery has around 30 boxes of her art and correspondence[1] including her Adolf Hitler Memorial Fund collecting tin.