Pauline Smith

Pauline Elizabeth Smith (5 September 1933 – 19 March 2017) was a British provocateur and artist who specialised in mail art. In later life she became fascinated by astrology and the "charismatic appeal" of Adolf Hitler. Early life Smith was born in Kenya on 5 September 1933. Her father was a telecommunications engineer. The family lived in Uganda and Egypt before arriving in the United Kingdom in 1945. Smith was educated at a convent school in St. Albans which she left at the age of 16 against the wishes of her mother. She worked as a florist, a window dresser and for the BBC as a secretary. 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. Postal emissions relating to the Hitler fan club resulted in a police raid on her home.

In 2006, she distributed Tombs of the Last (Species) to all members of Parliament followed by SPECIES TOMBS circulated to all MPs in 2008. Extinctions was a series of 14 colour Xerox prints of inscribed photographs inspired by her interest in nature and animal forces. and the 2008 financial crisis.

She was often in ill health and in 1990 was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis after having suffered periods of illness since the 1960s.