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Learn about Paula Rego, a Portuguese visual artist who is known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Explore her life, style, influences and 36 artworks on Wikiart.org, a visual art database.
- British, Portuguese
- January 26, 1935
- Lisbon, Portugal
Learn about Paula Rego (1935-2022), a prominent woman artist of the late 20th and early 21st century, known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Explore her life, career, style, themes, and awards on Wikipedia.
- Summary of Paula Rego
- Accomplishments
- Biography of Paula Rego
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In Paula Rego's impressive oeuvre the contradictions of humanity are fully exposed; fantasy and reality, strength and suppression, and the personal and the political all writhe together in circling dialogue. She depicts the human figure predominately from life and thus allows her sitters to "flood you with their personality". Often groups of figure...
Rego celebrates a physical and individualistic way of being female. According to her Portuguese childhood, wealthy women were pressed to do nothing and working-class women to do everything. As such...Rego has successfully addressed two human experiences that although extremely widespread are almost entirely unrepresented. The first is abortion, and the other, depression. In 1998 Rego made a tri...Rego depicts war and the chaos of grotesque human behaviour en masse in the same way that artists of the New Objectivity movement did, including Otto Dix and George Grosz. The strong overtones of e...Rego was a dedicated member of The London Group, an independent organisation established as early as 1913 to help artists with practical matters, for example to secure exhibitions. This group is no...Childhood and youth
Rego was born in Lisbon in 1935. She was an only child, her family was wealthy and as such she had a comfortable upbringing. Her father became an electrical engineer for the British firm Marconi but when Rego was born, he was still studying. In 1936, he decided to finish his studies in England and moved to the UK with his wife. The couple left Rego to be looked after by her grandmother, grandfather, and her great-grandfather who was a priest. Rego's parents moved back to Portugal when she was...
Middle period
At this point in her artistic career, Rego principally made political collages that challenged authority and power structures. The collages resemble Indian illustrations of the epic Ramayana story, and also the work of the American artist, Nancy Spero. The work is rich and interesting but Rego remembers the period as one dominated by depression, noting in an interview, "I seized up and got into a terrible depression. I couldn't keep following the rules; I had to break out." In 1962, Rego's fa...
Late Period
Rego continued to work and paint prolifically throughout the 1990s. By this point she had made the transition from paint to pastel. Rego said in interview, "Yes. Pastel, pastel, pastel, pastel, pastel [...] Never rubbing anything. Drawing, drawing, drawing [...] I don't like the wonkiness of the brush, I'm not mad about the lyrical quality of the brush. I much prefer the hardness of the stick [...] The stick is fiercer, much more aggressive." During the 2000s she has made many print and drawi...
Explore the life and work of Paula Rego, a surrealist artist who depicted the human figure, psychology, and social issues. See her paintings, collages, and prints that expose the contradictions and emotions of humanity.
- Portuguese-British
- January 26, 1935
- Lisbon, Portugal
- June 8, 2022
Figures with toy rabbit-heads stumble, bloodied and injured, through a surreal battlefield. Welcome to the fabulous, imaginative world of Portuguese fine artist Paula Rego – a heady and...
Explore the life and work of Paula Rego, a Portuguese-British visual artist known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. See her artworks in Tate Britain and watch a film about her life and legacy.
Discover and purchase Paula Rego’s artworks, available for sale. Browse our selection of paintings, prints, and sculptures by the artist, and find art you love.
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Paula Rego was a Portuguese artist who painted and printed folktale-inspired scenes with women and dogs. Explore her 808 artworks on artnet, including paintings, prints, and works on paper.
