Paula Rego

‘The boy, lying naked and blue on the sand like a broken doll, the sea licking his feet… Our attention is completely focused on this strange figure, who, in death, has become frozen like a wooden saint…’ — Emily Spicer, Studio International. The Sky is Blue the Sea is Blue and the Boy is Blue, 2017, is one of four works by Paula Rego inspired by Bastardia, a 2005 story by the celebrated Portuguese novelist, playwright and poet Hélia Correia. It was created for Rego’s 2017–2018 Jerwood Gallery Hastings exhibition The Boy Who Loved the Sea and Other Stories, the first major exhibition of new work by the artist in a UK public art gallery for ten years. In Correia’s fateful tale, a boy who believes his father is the sea makes a journey to the ocean, which he has never seen before, experiencing a number of encounters and hardships along the way. This work depicts the story’s denouement, in which on reaching his destination the boy immediately dies: sky, sea and the boy’s lifeless body assume shades of blue. Writing about this work in a review of the Hastings show published in Studio International, Emily Spicer, commented ‘Rego’s illustrations for this tragic tale are vibrant and busy, packed with animals and characters, but the last image, that of the boy, lying naked and blue on the sand like a broken doll, the sea licking his feet, is comparatively sparse. Our attention is completely focused on this strange figure, who, in death, has become frozen like a wooden saint. Tilt your head to the side and he becomes Jesus on the cross, a martyr to neglect.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

Published in 1878, Eça de Queiroz’ novel Cousin Bazilio is a story of marriage, betrayal, blackmail and, ultimately, death that, set in bourgeois Portuguese society with a finely drawn cast and luxurious detail, intersects with many of the themes and motifs of Rego’s art. Grief, 2015, is one of a number of works inspired by scenes from the novel that make numerous connections between physical interiors and psychological states.

The book being read in this picture is a limited edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy with etchings by Gustave Doré. It was a book that Rego’s grandfather bought in 1890 and has been in the family ever since. During her childhood, Rego and her father would look at the book together. She sets the scene in Estoril, its beach glimpsed through a window, with narratives within the picture suggesting episodes by turns domestic and uncanny. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy notes that ‘This morphing of realism and surrealism gives equal status to the ordinary and the extraordinary, in which, as ever, the artist is also working with fragments of memory.’

The relationship between daughters and their mothers, a recurring theme in Rego’s art, is prevalent in a number of works in the exhibition. Each work features an oversized armchair that, skewing a sense of scale, creates a hallucinatory, almost Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland atmosphere to images that, equally, distort accepted notions of familial care and the roles of adult and child.

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

‘The highs and lows of her own life were mixed up with the famous stories, enhancing and polluting their drama. These aren’t illustrations, they’re emotional hieroglyphs that tell a more personal story.’

— Nick Willing

The relationship between daughters and their mothers, a recurring theme in Rego’s art, is prevalent in a number of works in the exhibition. In Convulsion IV, a woman recoils in apparent disdain from the figure of an older woman who seems to writhe on the ground as if suffering a seizure. Each work features an oversized armchair that, skewing a sense of scale, creates a hallucinatory, almost Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland atmosphere to images that, equally, distort accepted notions of familial care and the roles of adult and child.

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

The relationship between daughters and their mothers, a recurring theme in Rego’s art, is prevalent in a number of works in the exhibition. Nursing, 2000, is a large-scale monochrome work that delivers successive waves of shock: bodily transformation wrought by age and the apparent ambivalence of the carer.

These self-portraits were completed in 2017, soon after the artist fell and badly injured her face. While Rego’s presence in her work – as creator, narrator or putative subject – is always palpable, she has made self-portraits only a handful of times in her career. In these characteristically unflinching works, Rego deftly captures her own likeness, bruised and out of shape, not as a means of expressing pain but because its physical effects gave her a reason to draw herself. As she said at the time, ‘I didn’t like the fall… but the self-portraits I liked doing. I had something to show.’ The power of transformation – caused by age, accident or anguish – is one theme of an exhibition that reveals Rego’s creative inspiration and motivation, and the candour of her vision, sustained across narratives, through motifs and over decades. In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘We see an older woman, her mouth wide open to reveal a snarl of crooked lower teeth, a wedding ring (perhaps) on the finger of her left hand, a pastel stick held in her right hand. If she is stripped of the radiance of youth, she is nevertheless radiant with the force of her own taboo-breaking gaze.’

‘It was the first time Paula had visited New York and it undoubtedly left its mark. She loved the contradictions she found there.’

— Nick Willing

An artist of uncompromising vision and a peerless storyteller, Paula Rego has since the 1950s brought immense psychological insight and imaginative power to the genre of figurative art. Drawing upon details of her own extraordinary life, on politics and art history, on literature, folk legends, myths and fairytales, Rego’s work at its heart is an exploration of human relationships, her piercing eye trained on the established order and the codes, structures and dynamics of power that embolden or repress the characters she depicts. Published in 1878, Eça de Queiroz’ novel Cousin Bazilio is a story of marriage, betrayal, blackmail and, ultimately, death that, set in bourgeois Portuguese society with a finely drawn cast and luxurious detail, intersects with many of the themes and motifs of Rego’s art. The Paradise of the title refers to the interior in which two characters from the novel, Luisa and Bazilio, conduct an affair.

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

These self-portraits were completed in 2017, soon after the artist fell and badly injured her face. While Rego’s presence in her work – as creator, narrator or putative subject – is always palpable, she has made self-portraits only a handful of times in her career. In these characteristically unflinching works, Rego deftly captures her own likeness, bruised and out of shape, not as a means of expressing pain but because its physical effects gave her a reason to draw herself. As she said at the time, ‘I didn’t like the fall… but the self-portraits I liked doing. I had something to show.’ The power of transformation – caused by age, accident or anguish – is one theme of an exhibition that reveals Rego’s creative inspiration and motivation, and the candour of her vision, sustained across narratives, through motifs and over decades. In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘We see an older woman, her mouth wide open to reveal a snarl of crooked lower teeth, a wedding ring (perhaps) on the finger of her left hand, a pastel stick held in her right hand. If she is stripped of the radiance of youth, she is nevertheless radiant with the force of her own taboo-breaking gaze.’

‘As a teenager Paula would often accompany her father to the Lisbon opera house, but the evening was not just about what was on the stage, it also offered a glimpse into the city’s high society. It was the intrigue, scandal, gossip, on and off the stage that made her mind buzz.’

— Nick Willing

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

‘By the time we get to In and Out of The Sea, the high octane fireworks that Paula ignited in 1981 have a more epic quality. The brown bear sails on an odyssey full of challenges and pleasures.’

— Nick Willing

Completed in 2005, The Fisherman by Paula Rego is one of a number of major works relating to Rego’s father and scenes from her early life in Portugal. In this work, which is based on a specific episode from the artist’s childhood, a figure (the artist’s father) captures a giant octopus. The surrounding space appears to occupy both interior and exterior worlds and, as a result, seems to point to psychological as much as physical surfacing – the drawing up of thoughts, memories and emotions.

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

‘Rego’s paintings swarm with animals and with beings that spring from the intersection of human and non-human, all ensnarled in dangerous liaisons that would once have been called “unnatural”, but which instead merely demonstrate that human beings are deeply rooted in the animal kingdom.’

— Cecilia Alemani

‘By the time we get to In and Out of The Sea, the high octane fireworks that Paula ignited in 1981 have a more epic quality. The brown bear sails on an odyssey full of challenges and pleasures.’

— Nick Willing

Completed in 2001, Misericordia is inspired by a nineteenth-century novella by the Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós and, like other works on view, explores the mother-daughter relationship, in this instance against the backdrop of the artist’s own mother’s ailing health and eventual death. Writing in the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy comments, ‘There is rarely one fixed meaning in any image. Rego’s artfulness is to suggest a moment of change or contemplation, or to offer simultaneous narratives to fracture time. This can be seen in the multiple story lines of the Misericordia series… Her gaze on the female body in all phases of life is brutally true and endearingly tender, in this case, the bare-bottomed old women being helped to the bathroom or to get dressed, with the detail of a smart handbag (perhaps a whole abandoned life inside it) resting tragically on a cupboard.’

Throughout her career, Rego has produced works that give visibility and a voice to sexual assault against women, addressing subjects specifically from the perspective of women’s experience as well as feminine power, physicality and strength. In 2008–2009, the artist created a multimedia work for the Foundling Museum that, based on an altarpiece, explores the violence effected on women’s bodies. One of the panels shows a rape, and this is an associated work. Writing about the Foundling Museum work in the Thames & Hudson book Paula Rego: The Art of Story, Deryn Rees-Jones notes that, ‘While the subject matter is stark, the dynamics of gesture and expression are not uncomplicated. What makes these images so moving is an approach that refuses sensationalism. These events in their horror must be recorded, Rego seems to insist, but they must also be represented in a manner that neither re-enacts trauma nor disempowers

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’

Obedience and Defiance Exhibition Catalogue, p.140

'A large queenlike figure in a strong powerful seated pose, apparently selling cake, dominates the Estoril beach scene. To her right is a drastically foreshortened figure sunbathing on beach towels. To her left, a man appears to be making some kind of indecent proposition to a young boy. Perhaps a reference to the artist's memory of men prowling around boys from the priest's school attended by her cousin, his work was also inspired by her research into Portugal's neutral status during the Second World War - a moment of disruption and unease with both Allied and Nazi spies - and the influx of German (and royal) refugees after the war. The skull-headed figure contributes to the ominous mood.'

The exhibition includes works inspired by episodes from the artist’s childhood in Portugal, including the large-scale La Marafona, 2005, a tender portrayal that refers to the burden of her beloved father’s depression. Rego considers her own depression to have been inherited from her father and her identification with his suffering – and its legacy – is explored elsewhere in the exhibition. Speaking about this work, the artist’s son, Nick Willing, says, ‘This is a family picture. Paula’s mum is behind her dad, holding him with her hands on his shoulders. And Paula has her head leaning on his shoulder. He’s wearing a crown of thorns because that’s Paula’s way of showing that he suffered from depression. La Marafona is also Paula. Really it is about how she identified with him because she also inherited depression.’

These self-portraits were completed in 2017, soon after the artist fell and badly injured her face. While Rego’s presence in her work – as creator, narrator or putative subject – is always palpable, she has made self-portraits only a handful of times in her career. In these characteristically unflinching works, Rego deftly captures her own likeness, bruised and out of shape, not as a means of expressing pain but because its physical effects gave her a reason to draw herself. As she said at the time, ‘I didn’t like the fall… but the self-portraits I liked doing. I had something to show.’ The power of transformation – caused by age, accident or anguish – is one theme of an exhibition that reveals Rego’s creative inspiration and motivation, and the candour of her vision, sustained across narratives, through motifs and over decades. In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘We see an older woman, her mouth wide open to reveal a snarl of crooked lower teeth, a wedding ring (perhaps) on the finger of her left hand, a pastel stick held in her right hand. If she is stripped of the radiance of youth, she is nevertheless radiant with the force of her own taboo-breaking gaze.’

‘She used her opera’s hieroglyphic style to reflect the drama of the marathon in Corrida before trying something more flamboyant in Marathon. There’s a sense of hysteria, of fight or flight about these runners. Are they racing or running for their lives?’

— Nick Willing

‘The highs and lows of her own life were mixed up with the famous stories, enhancing and polluting their drama. These aren’t illustrations, they’re emotional hieroglyphs that tell a more personal story.’

— Nick Willing

These self-portraits were completed in 2017, soon after the artist fell and badly injured her face. While Rego’s presence in her work – as creator, narrator or putative subject – is always palpable, she has made self-portraits only a handful of times in her career. In these characteristically unflinching works, Rego deftly captures her own likeness, bruised and out of shape, not as a means of expressing pain but because its physical effects gave her a reason to draw herself. As she said at the time, ‘I didn’t like the fall… but the self-portraits I liked doing. I had something to show.’ The power of transformation – caused by age, accident or anguish – is one theme of an exhibition that reveals Rego’s creative inspiration and motivation, and the candour of her vision, sustained across narratives, through motifs and over decades. In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘We see an older woman, her mouth wide open to reveal a snarl of crooked lower teeth, a wedding ring (perhaps) on the finger of her left hand, a pastel stick held in her right hand. If she is stripped of the radiance of youth, she is nevertheless radiant with the force of her own taboo-breaking gaze.’

These self-portraits were completed in 2017, soon after the artist fell and badly injured her face. While Rego’s presence in her work – as creator, narrator or putative subject – is always palpable, she has made self-portraits only a handful of times in her career. In these characteristically unflinching works, Rego deftly captures her own likeness, bruised and out of shape, not as a means of expressing pain but because its physical effects gave her a reason to draw herself. As she said at the time, ‘I didn’t like the fall… but the self-portraits I liked doing. I had something to show.’ The power of transformation – caused by age, accident or anguish – is one theme of an exhibition that reveals Rego’s creative inspiration and motivation, and the candour of her vision, sustained across narratives, through motifs and over decades. In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘We see an older woman, her mouth wide open to reveal a snarl of crooked lower teeth, a wedding ring (perhaps) on the finger of her left hand, a pastel stick held in her right hand. If she is stripped of the radiance of youth, she is nevertheless radiant with the force of her own taboo-breaking gaze.’

‘She used her opera’s hieroglyphic style to reflect the drama of the marathon in Corrida before trying something more flamboyant in Marathon. There’s a sense of hysteria, of fight or flight about these runners. Are they racing or running for their lives?’

— Nick Willing

‘As a teenager Paula would often accompany her father to the Lisbon opera house, but the evening was not just about what was on the stage, it also offered a glimpse into the city’s high society. It was the intrigue, scandal, gossip, on and off the stage that made her mind buzz.’

— Nick Willing

The Depression series, 2007, is a suite of large-scale pastels born out of an especially debilitating depressive episode and Rego’s attempts to draw her way out of it. In reference to the series, Nick Willing says, ‘She hid these pictures for ten years because she was ashamed. She was ashamed of suffering from depression.’ Rego discusses the works publicly for the first time in Willing’s 2017 film Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories. The film aired in cinemas in Portugal for many weeks and the works were subsequently shown at House of Stories, the museum in Cascais dedicated exclusively to Rego’s work. Discussing the effect of the film and exhibition in Portugal, Willing says, ‘What happened was that every TV panel show and morning show would talk about depression. The Portuguese never talked about depression, it was a big taboo, but one of the things that Paula did, which is what she’s always done, is she broke the ice and allowed them to talk about it. She forced people to confront it and talk about it and open up.’ In the accompanying publication, Deborah Levy writes, ‘To encounter the 2007 series titled Depression, is to understand that the full spectrum of female emotional life has been embodied for us by a uniquely fearless artist.’