Background

Paula Rego was born on January 26, 1935 in Lisbon, Portugal; the daughter of Jose Figueiroa Rego and Maria de San Jose Paiva Figueiroa Rego.

Education

Rego attended the St Julian's School from 1945 to 1951. In 1951, she was sent to the United Kingdom to attend a finishing school called "The Grove School". In 1952, Paula attempted to start studies in art at the Chelsea School of Art. The same year she began her studies at the Slade School of Art, where she studied for four years.

Paula received an honorary degree of Master of Arts from the Winchester School of Art in 1992. Also she was given an honorary degree of Doctorate of Letters from the University of St Andrews and the University of East Anglia, both in 1999, the Rhode Island School of Design in 2000, the London Institute in 2002 and the University of Oxford and Roehampton University in 2005.

Career

Rego's artistic career started in the early 1960s, when she began researching traditional fairy tales, reinterpreting them and bringing the darker side of human emotions to her depictions of them. In 1962, Paula began exhibiting with the London Group. In her earliest works, such as "Always at Your Excellency's Service", 1961, she was strongly influenced by Surrealism and particularly the work of Joan Miró.

In 1965, Rego had her first solo show at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes. Also Rego had seven solo shows in Portugal in Lisbon and Oporto from 1971 to 1978. Then she had a series of solo exhibitions in Britain, including those at the AIR Gallery in London in 1981, the Arnolfini in Bristol in 1983 and the Edward Totah Gallery in London in 1984, 1985 and 1987.

In 1989, she became the first Associate Artist of the National Gallery in London. After that in 1990, a notable change in Rego's style emerged. A series of works which came to characterize the popular perception of Paula's style appeared, combining strong clear drawing with depictions of equally strong women in sometimes disturbing situations. In her painting "Snow White Playing With Her Father`s Trophies", 1995, Paula uses the allegory of female vanity to underlie a familial politic.

Rego gave up working with collage in the late 1970s, and began using pastels as a medium in the early 1990s. She continues to use pastels to this day, almost to the exclusion of oil paint. Paula's most notable works made in pastel are in her "Dog Women" series, in which women are shown sitting, squatting, scratching and generally behaving as if they were dogs. Since 1994, she creates art in a studio in Camden.

In 2008, Rego exhibited at the Marlborough Chelsea in New York and staged a retrospective of her graphic works at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Nimes. In addition in 2016, she had her solo shows, including "Dancing Ostriches by Paula Rego" and "Paula Rego: Pendle Witches and Children's Crusade" at Marlborough Graphics in London. In 2018, Paula had an exhibition "The Cruel Stories of Paula Rego" at the Musée de l'Orangerie. She lives and works in London.

Achievements

• Rego's works are in the collections of Abbot Hall Art Gallery, British Museum, Whitworth Art Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Berardo Collection Museum and many others.
  
  In 2009 a museum the "Casa das Histórias Paula Rego" dedicated to Paula's work was opened in Cascais, and several key exhibitions of her work have since been staged there.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Stone Soup

    (Full of the macabre touches and dark humor that have made...)

    2014
  • O Vinho

    (Paula Rego`s O Vinho is inspired by a short story by the ...)

    2007
  • Jane Eyre 2003

• painting

  • The Maids

  • Pomagne

  • Come to Me

  • Him

  • Doctor Dog

  • Bride

  • The Dance

  • The Guardian

  • Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple

  • Olga

  • Snow White Playing with her Father's Trophies

  • Lessons

  • The Family

  • Mist II

  • War

  • The Policeman's Daughter

  • Dancing Ostriches from Disney's 'Fantasia'

  • The Fitting

  • A Madrasta

  • Moth

  • Celestina's House

  • Dancing Ostriches

  • Mist III

  • Untitled

  • The Interrogator's Garden

  • Pendle Witches

  • Nanny, Small Bears and Bogeyman

  • Flood

  • Mist IV

  • Mist I

  • Dancing Ostriches from Disney's 'Fantasia'

  • Snow White and her Stepmother

  • Dancing Ostriches from Disney's 'Fantasia'

  • Dog Woman

  • Dancing Ostriches from Disney's 'Fantasia'

  • Whinney Moor

Religion

Rego has described herself as having become a "sort of Catholic", but as a child she possessed a sense of Catholic guilt and a very strong belief that the Devil was real.

Views

Rego has been a critic of the anti-abortion movement, using the theme of abortion as a focal point in much of her art. She opposes the criminalisation of abortion and has said that the anti-abortion movement "criminalises women" and in some instances will lead women to be forced to find potentially deadly "backstreet solutions".

Quotations: "If you put frightening things into a picture, then they can't harm you. In fact, you end becoming quite fond of them."

"Art is the only place you can do what you like. That`s freedom."

"We interpret the world through stories... everybody makes in their own way sense of things, but if you have stories it helps."

"Sketches always have more vitality than paintings because you're finding things out through doing them."

"Painting helps you find out about things through painting them. It is not a career."

Personality

Many of Paula's paintings are of people caught in the act – but the acts are often ambiguous and the stories that surround them are enigmatic.

She was commissioned by the Royal Mail in 2004 to produce a set of Jane Eyre stamps.

Connections

In 1959, Paula Rego married Victor Willing. They have three children.

Father:

Jose Figueiroa Rego

He died in 1966. Jose was an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company and was ardently anti-fascist.

Mother:

Maria de San Jose Paiva Figueiroa Rego

Spouse:

Victor Willing (January 15, 1928 - June 1, 1988)

He was a British painter, noted for his original nude studies.

Son:

Nick Willing

He is a British director, producer and writer of films and television series.

Daughter:

Victoria C. Willing

She is a British actress, voice artist, playwright and writer, known for her work on The Inbetweeners and various Jim Henson Company productions.

Daughter:

Caroline Willing

References

• Paula Rego: The Complete Graphic Work The second edition includes chapters on five new series - Moon Eggs, Prince Pig, Wine, Curved Planks, and Beyond Abortion; on works out of series since 2004; and on the influence of playwright Martin McDonagh’s work on Rego.
  2012
• Paula Rego: Behind the Scenes Paula Rego: Behind the Scenes offers the reader a unique opportunity to observe the studio life and working practice of one of the most important figurative artists working today.
  2008
• Paula Rego The monumentality and psychological drama of Paula Rego's paintings have established her as one of the most important figurative painters of her generation.
  1997
• Paula Rego Briefly traces the life and career of the Portugueese artist, shows and describes her major paintings and drawings, and discusses major themes in her work.
  1992
• Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance Obedience and Defiance accompanies a major traveling exhibition of Rego’s career since the 1960s and includes previously unseen works and curatorial texts.
  2019