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Caroline Mary Thompson Coon (born 23 March, 1945) is an English artist known for her paintings, her feminist political activism, her writing and photography. ‘Caroline Coon, Artist’ Stephen Friedman Gallery, Retrieved 19 July 2024; ‘ Caroline Coon, Overview’ Centre for British Photography, Retrieved 19 July 2024 After coming to prominence first as a leader of the UK underground,Green, Maureen (3 December 1967) ‘Who’s Who In The Underground’ Observer Magazine, p. 9 and then in the vanguard of Punk subculture,Jonze, Tim (2 May 2018) ‘Caroline Coon: Even at 13, I knew I couldn’t be respectable’ The Guardian, Retrieved 19 July 2024 she is recognised today as a foremost figurative painter in contemporary British art, with her work included in landmark survey exhibitions at London’s Hayward Gallery and Tate Britain. ‘Caroline Coon, Biography’ Stephen Friedman Gallery, Retrieved 19 July 2024
While at Central School of Art in 1967, Coon co-founded the charity Release, which provided legal services for those arrested on drug possession charges.Coon, Caroline, “We were the welfare branch of the alternative society” pp. 183 - 197 in The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of social innovation, eds. Curtis, Helene & Sanderson, Mimi, Whiting & Birch Ltd, 2004 In the 1970s, earning money as a freelance journalist, including writing for Melody Maker, she became conscious of the zeitgeist change in youth culture which she christened the punk rock movement.Jonze, Tim (2 May 2018) ‘Caroline Coon: Even at 13, I knew I couldn’t be respectable’ The Guardian, Retrieved 19 July 2024; Cavaluzzo, Alexander (18 April 2019) ‘Punk Legend Johnny Rotten on Design, Abortion and Trump’ Newsweek, Retrieved 19 July 2024 Her photographs of the early punk days are now published and exhibited throughout the world. 'Caroline Coon, Overview’ Centre for British Photography, Retrieved 19 July 2024 Coon managed The Clash from 1978 to 1980, through two significant tours in the UK and North America.Cortene, Lene ‘Caroline Coon - Punk Girl Polymath’ Punk Girl Diaries, Retrieved 19 July 2024
Since the early 1980s, Coon’s primary focus has been her oil paintings which regularly feature women and men, both clothed and nude, in scenes that often contest the misogyny of patriarchy. With reference points as varied as Pauline Boty, Lorenzo Lotto, Artemisia Gentileschi and Henri Rousseau, her work has been compared to that of Paul Cadmus, Tamara de Lempicka, Gluck and Christian Schad. Since 2022, she has been represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery. ‘Caroline Coon, Artist’ Stephen Friedman Gallery, Retrieved 19 July 2024
After leaving the Royal Ballet School in London in 1961, the 16 year-old Coon took on a variety of jobs to earn a living as she continued her education to secure a place on a pre-diploma fine art course. She worked as a house model at various fashion brands including Alexon Group, Strelitz, and Norman Hartnell. An incident with the police – she forged her father’s signature on a passport application form – necessitated Coon’s return to Northamptonshire where she lived with her grandmother, attending a secretarial course by day and completing her A-level Art by night. She was accepted into the fine art pre-diploma at the Northampton School of Art in 1964.Coon, Caroline, “We were the welfare branch of the alternative society” pp. 183 - 197 in The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of social innovation, eds. Curtis, Helene & Sanderson, Mimi, Whiting & Birch Ltd, 2004
At Central College of Art, one of Coon’s tutors was the now renowned Pop art Derek Boshier. He introduced her to his friend and colleague, the seminal British pop artist Pauline Boty and her husband, the literary agent Clive Goodwin. Buszek, Maria Elena “Great Offender and Realist Criminal’ in Caroline Coon: The Great Offender, Tramps, 2019, Retrieved 23 July 2024 Boty had appeared alongside Boshier in Ken Russell’s 1962 television film Pop Goes The Easel for the BBC’s Monitor series. Boty’s art was to exert a powerful influence over Coon.Kristal, Marc Pauline Boty: British Pop Art’s Sole Sister, Frances Lincoln, 2023 After the young painter’s untimely death from cancer in 1966, her widower Goodwin gave Boty’s paints and brushes to Coon. Speaking to art historian Maria Elena Buszek in 2019, Coon said “he believed in me, I think. Whenever things got really tough, I could rely on the promise I made to myself after Boty died, to carry on where she left off. In a way, I’ve pulled through many a psychological and financial crisis and kept on painting in her honour.” Buszek, Maria Elena “Great Offender and Realist Criminal’ in Caroline Coon: The Great Offender, Tramps, 2019, Retrieved 23 July 2024
Like Boty, as a fine art student Coon also did paid work in film and television. She appeared as an extra in both Blowup and in the Vincent Price thriller The House of 1,000 Dolls (1967). Retrieved 20 July 2024 She starred in Harrison Marks’ erotic films Amour (1966) and The Naked World of Harrison Marks (1967). ‘Caroline Coon - The Kamera Club’ Retrieved 20 July 2024 Alongside Boshier and Goodwin, she was cast as the Pre-Raphaelite model Annie Miller in Ken Russell’s Dante’s Inferno (1967), with Oliver Reed as Dante Gabriel Rossetti. ‘ Dante’s Inferno (1967) Production Credits’ BFI Collections Database, Retrieved 20 July 2024
Coon’s studies at the Central College ended in 1967 as she set-up Release. In the early 1970s, on the recommendation of British sociologist and criminologist Baroness Wooton of Abinger, whom she met through her work with Release, Coon returned to education at Brunel University, studying Psychology, Sociology and Economics.Coon, Caroline, “We were the welfare branch of the alternative society” pp. 183 - 197 in The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of social innovation, eds. Curtis, Helene & Sanderson, Mimi, Whiting & Birch Ltd, 2004
The office was initially run from the studio of Coon’s West London basement flat. From there they moved to 50 Princedale Road in Holland Park, which was described by the New York Times as “a long, narrow room that was crowded with psychedelic posters, filing cabinets, desks, telephones and young people.”Mobiles, Dom (13 September 1970) “A Walk on London’s Wild Side” The New York Times, Retrieved 20 July 2024 In a landmark profile in LIFE Magazine at the time, the journalist Horace Judson observed that:
“in two years Release has become one of the most important civil liberties and legal-aid organisations in Britain. Besides the many cases where the police make an arrest but then do not press charges, Release takes from 50 to 80 cases a month into the courts. Six solicitors in London have handled the bulk of the more than 2,000 court cases over the last 18 months… no first offenders on cannabis charges helped by Release have been sent to prison whereas 17% of the total population of first cannabis offenders do get sent down.”Judson, Horace (15 September 1969) “This Is an Underground with Office Hours” LIFE Magazine, pp. 43 - 48Release and Coon were profiled regularly in the media in these years, including a short film on BBC’s New Horizons series in May 1971.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> ‘A Chance to Meet: Caroline Coon of Release’ BBC One 12.50pm, 15 February 1971, BBC Genome Project, Retrieved 20 July 2024 As well as thousands of young people, the service was used by those in the public eye, including John Lennon and George Harrison, who donated £5,000 to Release in 1969,Coon, Caroline, “We were the welfare branch of the alternative society” pp. 183 - 197 in The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of social innovation, eds. Curtis, Helene & Sanderson, Mimi, Whiting & Birch Ltd, 2004 and Mick Jagger whose film Performance (1970) was premiered as a benefit fundraiser for Release at his request.Jonze, Tim (16 November 2018) ‘Performance? I still don’t understand it - Behind the scenes of the cult classic’ The Guardian, Retrieved 20 July 2024
In 1967, while protesting on the King’s Road against the jail sentence of Brian Jones, Coon was arrested for damaging a police van in which several demonstrators, including Chris Jagger, were being held. After being sentenced to two weeks in Holloway Prison for refusing to pay the fine, she was freed by broadcaster Bernard Braden, who immediately recorded an interview for a documentary he was making on the Swinging Sixties. The footage was un-broadcast at the time, but in 2008 it featured in Channel 5’s exploration of the Braden archives.Coon, Caroline, “We were the welfare branch of the alternative society” pp. 183 - 197 in The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of social innovation, eds. Curtis, Helene & Sanderson, Mimi, Whiting & Birch Ltd, 2004; “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll: The Sixties Revealed“ broadcast 15 December 2008 Channel 5, available on YouTube, Retrieved 20 July 2024
Release became widely known for its ‘Know Your Rights’ bust cards that included the Release 24 hour telephone number. Initially designed by Coon, the bust card has been updated ever since to reflect changing laws.Bradley, Kate ‘Over-policed and under-protected: the Black community and legal activism in London, 1965-1975’, pp. 242-262 Historische Anthropologie Vol. 31, No. 2, 2023 In 2014, an example of an early Release bust card was included at the V&A’s Disobedient Objects exhibition.Flood, Katherine & Grindon, Gavin (eds.) Disobedient Objects, V&A Publishing, 2014 Coon twice appeared at parliamentary advisory committees to provide evidence on drug dependence and police corruption, insights which fed into the Wootton Report, and the Deedes Report (Powers of Arrest and Search in Relation to Drug Offences) of 1970. Timeline: 50 Years of Release www.release.org.uk Retrieved 20 July 2024
In collaboration with co-founder Rufus Harris, Coon published The Release Report in 1969, a survey on their work to date, with a particular focus on how their efforts were often hampered by police corruption. Despite an initial attempt by the authorities to suppress the book, Coon and Harris succeeded in ensuring its widespread distribution.Coon, Caroline, “We were the welfare branch of the alternative society” pp. 183 - 197 in The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of social innovation, eds. Curtis, Helene & Sanderson, Mimi, Whiting & Birch Ltd, 2004 In 1971, alongside comedian Marty Feldman, philosophers Edward de Bono and Ronald Dworkin, and musician and broadcaster George Melly, Coon was called as a witness for the defence in the controversial obscenity trial brought against Oz Magazine.Heller, Stephen (1 December 2014) “Trials in the Land of Oz” Print Mag Retrieved 20 July 2014
Over the following years, she published landmark profiles of Patti Smith, Olivia Newton-John, Joan Armatrading and Lynsey de Paul, as well as significant early interviews with Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Lou Reed, and Kraftwerk. ‘Caroline Coon: Rock’s Back Pages Library’ Rock's Backpages, Retrieved 20 July 2024 One of her commissions was an extended interview with Yoko Ono for Cosmopolitan magazine, which the title declined after it was submitted, citing frustration at the lack of questioning about Ono’s relationship with her children.Coon, Caroline (unpublished, 1974) “Yoko Ono: The Whole World Is My Mother-in-Law” Rock's Backpages, Retrieved 20 July 2024
In 1976, Coon attended the Sex Pistols’ second gig, on the recommendation of the film critic Alan Jones, who was then working at Vivienne Westwood’s SEX shop on the King’s Road. She was immediately struck by the iconoclastic fervour of the young band. In an interview with journalist Cazz Blase in 2010, Coon observed “if peace and love hadn’t worked for young people, the next generation was going to become angry and express itself in opposition to what had gone before, which is how cultures work, that’s the dialectic. That was my theory! And here was my theory of what counterculture was going to do next writ large.”Blaze, Cass (14 March 2010) “Writing Women Back Into Punk” The F Word, Retrieved 20 July 2024
Coon became a key player in the nascent Punk fashion, documenting in writing and photography its rise of key figures including the Sex Pistols, the Clash and The Slits. ‘Caroline Coon Archive’ Camera Press, Retrieved 20 July 2024 Following the publication of an August 1976 Melody Maker article, “Punk Rock: Rebels Against The System” she was credited by John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), with being the first to use the adjective ‘punk’ – The Punk Rock Movement - to describe the new era of rock music being made in UK.Cavaluzzo, Alexander (18 April 2019) ‘Punk Legend Johnny Rotten on Design, Abortion and Trump’ Newsweek, Retrieved 19 July 2024; Coon, Caroline (7 August 1976) “Punk Rock: Rebels Against The System” Melody Maker (via Rock's Backpages) Retrieved 20 July 2024 She also identified the first group of style-defining punk fans from Bromley including Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Billy Idol, Soo Catwoman and Pamela Rooke, as the ‘Bromley Contingent’.Twambley, Andrew (6 May 2018) ‘Caroline Coon: The Great Offender - in depth interview’ Louder than War, Retrieved 20 July 2024 When a charge of obscenity was brought against the Sex Pistols in November 1977, following the promotion of their album Never Mind the Bollocks… in Nottingham’s Virgin Records’ shop, Coon once again acted as a witness for the defence.Eaton, Michael (30 December 2023) Turning Point: Never Mind the Ballocks BBC Radio 4, Retrieved 20 July 2024 Coon became particularly associated with the band The Clash, taking the photo that was used as the cover of their first single “White Riot” in 1977.Coon, Caroline (18 March 2007). "18 March 1977 : Music Flashback". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2017. When the band parted ways with their first manager Bernard Rhodes, to prevent them breaking up like the Sex Pistols and The Damned, she stepped in to manage them through their ‘Sort It Out’ tour in Britain, and ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope,’ their first American dates, a move that held the band together, as they recorded and then released their highly acclaimed third album London Calling.Crampton, Luke & Rees, Dafydd The Q Book of Punk Legends pp. 38–47, Guinness Publishing Ltd, 1996
Towards the end of the decade, having read her book ‘1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion’, American screenwriter Nancy Dowd enlisted Coon as creative consultant and costume designer for the film that was eventually released as Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982). Coon helped Dowd develop the principal storyline centred about London’s punk rock scene, and helped cast The Clash’s Paul Simonon as bassist, the Sex Pistols’ Paul Cook as the drummer and Steve Jones as lead guitarist, with Ray Winstone playing the role of lead singer in the onscreen band The Looters. When filming eventually took place in Canada in the winter of 1980, tensions between director Lou Adler and Dowd resulted in the screenwriter leaving the production in frustration at Adler’s decisions. The film was released to cable, ignored until it was discovered by a new generation of musicians, including Kurt Cobain as well as the wider Riot grrrl movement, who recognised it as a feminist clarion-call and turned into an underground Cult film hit.Jacobson, Sarah “Why They Didn’t Put Out Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains!” p. 28 Grand Royal Magazine No. 6, 1997
Two of her earliest paintings, “Marathon” (1966) and “My Beautiful Cunt” (1966) were sold in 1966 to the British theatre impresario Michael White and Boty’s widower Clive Goodwin respectively. In 1971, she exhibited the now lost painting “Cuntucopia'' (1967) as part of a fund-raiser for the Oz obscenity trial. “Caroline Coon - About” Artist’s Website, Retrieved 20 July 2024 Another early fan was the actor Julie Christie, who acquired ‘Between Two Worlds’ (1981) from Coon in the 1980s.Burns, Sean (5 November 2019) “The Art World Finally Wakes Up to Caroline Coon” Frieze Magazine, Retrieved 20 July 2024
At a time when Abstract art and conceptual art were most highly prized, Coon’s figurative work struggled for recognition. In 1970, Germaine Greer included Coon in the dedications for her influential work The Female Eunuch with a tribute that nevertheless surprisingly voiced the prevailing prejudices of the day: “to CAROLINE, who danced, but badly, painted but badly….”Germaine Greer The Female Eunuch p. 6, MacGibbon & Kee, 1970
As commitments to Release, her music journalism and the wider Punk subculture consumed her time, Coon found it difficult to dedicate enough of her energy to painting. But, in the early 1980s, following the well-paid Hollywood consultancy on Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, Coon was able to stop taking freelance jobs and concentrate on her art. Buszek, Maria Elena “Great Offender and Realist Criminal’ in Caroline Coon: The Great Offender, Tramps, 2019, Retrieved 23 July 2024
Although she lived frugally in her Ladbroke Grove studio, her debts mounted up as London galleries were still unable to see value in her work. By 1983, faced with the threat of the bank repossessing her studio home, she began working at a Strip club in London’s Soho and then some months in an escort agency, where she earned enough money to pay off her overdraft. This period is documented in her art book Laid Bare Diary: 1983-1984 (2016) and has informed many of the scenes depicted in her on-going sequence of paintings The Brothel Series. Coon, Caroline Laid Bare - Diary - 1983-1984, Cunst Art, 2016
In 1995, Coon was invited to include her painting ‘Mr Olympia’ (1983) in an educational pack to be produced alongside an exhibition of the work of Henri Matisse and other male artists in Tate Liverpool. The artwork was originally selected as an example of a nude painting by a female artist, but when the curators saw the full-sized image, and the Erection, they declined to include it, an act of censorship which earned Coon the moniker “the woman who paints penises.”Millard, Rosie (26 March 1995) “Naked prejudice as Tate bars Mr Olympia” p. 3, The Observer; Jonze, Tim (2 May 2018) ‘Caroline Coon: Even at 13, I knew I couldn’t be respectable’ The Guardian, Retrieved 19 July 2024
In 2018, on the recommendation of her friend the artist Duggie Fields, curators Martin Green and James Lawler organised the first solo exhibition of Coon’s work at The Gallery, Liverpool, ‘Caroline Coon: The Great Offender’ which surveyed paintings from her various series, including her flower paintings.Green, Martin & Lawler, James, “Foreword” in Caroline Coon: The Great Offender, Tramps, 2019 A variation on this show was exhibited in 2019 at London’s Tramps gallery, curated by Peter Doig and Parinaz Magidassi, followed by another exhibition “Caroline Coon: In The Arena” at J Hammond Projects in 2020. This period saw her also participate in important group shows, including the Hayward Gallery’s ‘Mixing It Up’ (London 2021), Carl Freedman’s ‘Breakfast Under the Tree’ (Margate, 2021), and Tate Britain’s ‘Women in Revolt’ (2023). ‘Caroline Coon, Biography’ and ‘Caroline Coon, CV’ Stephen Friedman Gallery, Retrieved 19 July 2024 In a 2019 interview with the TalkArt podcast, she told interviewers Robert Diament and Russell Tovey that on average she completes two large scale paintings, approximately 4ft by 5ft each, a year, alongside a wide variety of smaller paintings, and works on paper.Robert Diament & Russell Tovey (22 November 2019) ‘Caroline Coon Interview’ Talk Art Podcast, Retrieved 19 July 2024
Many of her paintings can be grouped together into series, including her ‘Nation Flag Series: The Price We Pay for Oil’ — eg. ‘A Flag for Syria (2015), 'A Flag for Ana Mendieta (2017) —, her Brothel Series paintings — eg. ‘Between Parades’ (1985), ‘He Undresses In Another Hotel Room’ (2002) and ‘Cambridge Gardens: On Anywhere Street He Slips Unnoticed…’ (2013-14). Buszek, Maria Elena “Great Offender and Realist Criminal’ in Caroline Coon: The Great Offender, Tramps, 2019, Retrieved 23 July 2024 Her beach scenes featuring male nudes — eg. ‘Adonis Beach’ (1999), ‘See, He Is Absolutely Gorgeous’ (2002), ‘Adonis, Grace and Fertility' (2003) — were shown together for the first time at Art Basel Miami by Stephen Friedman Gallery in December 2023. “Caroline Coon: Paradise Beach - Kabinett, Art Basel Miami Beach” Stephen Friedman Gallery 6 – 10 December 2023, Retrieved 22 July 2024 Since the solo exhibition “Love of Place” in 2022, she has been represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery. ‘Caroline Coon, Artist Page’ Stephen Friedman Gallery, Retrieved 20 July 2024
She is the inspiration for Matching Mole’s song “O Caroline” by Robert Wyatt,Hofmann, Michael (21 December 2020) “Homage to Old Rottenhat” The Baffler, Retrieved 20 July 2024 and in her view Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me", “Caroline Coon - About” Artist’s Website, Retrieved 20 July 2024 although other women have also been identified as the subject of the song.Potter, Jordan (2 May 2024) “John Cale picks his favourite song of all time” Far Out Magazine, Retrieved 20 July 2024 In 1977, the ‘take-down’ rumour was spread by some male music journalists that the The Stranglers misogynist song “London Lady” was about her.Brown, Jonathan (28 August 2006) “Never mind the merchandising…” The Independent, Retrieved 20 July 2024 In “Punky Business,” a 1977 episode of The Goodies , Coon was satirised as Caroline Kook, a role played by Jane Asher. Retrieved 20 July 2024 Coon was portrayed by Jemma Redgrave in Tony Palmer’s 1991 television drama about the Oz obscenity case, The Trials of Oz. Retrieved 20 July 2024
In the late 1990s, Coon brought a landmark Defamation case, in which she represented herself, against the publisher Random House, following their publication of All Dressed Up: The Sixties and Counterculture (1998). The book contained allegations that anonymous young women who worked at Release offered sexual favours to major pop stars of the day, including George Harrison and Mick Jagger, in order to raise money for the organisation. Coon refuted the allegations, pointing out that it not only libelled the rock stars and her as Director of Release, but also the many young women who had been associated with the charity. Having seen the case through the High Court, in 2000 Coon won an apology from Random House, damages of £40,000 and legal fees of approximately £37,000. Coon donated part of her proceeds to digitising the Release archive at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.Smith, Michael (13 June 2000) “Sex for charity slur costs £40,000” The Daily Telegraph, Retrieved 20 July 2024
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