NEWS UPDATE

Cultural Issues
Art

Paula Rego
(born in 1935)

Born in Lisbon within a wealthy family, during Salazar´s regime (which would be a later influence in his malicious, sinister and dominating characters), Rego was sent to St Julian's School, Carcavelos, Portugal. She left to the Slade School of Art where she met the artist Victor Willing, whom she eventually married. The two divided their time between Portugal and England until 1975, when they moved to England. Willing later died after suffering for some years from multiple sclerosis. Rego was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1989 and was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa by Oxford University in June 2005.

Work

Her earlier work, during 60s and 70s is neo-dadaist or informal, using a mixed media with collage and painting, playing with childish, fetich or traumatic images, which would be essential in her mature style. She became part of London Group, with other fellow artists like David Hockney andR. B. Kitaj with whom he exhibited. Rego then started an illustrative and more figurative art, related as well to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud but such as Beatrix Potter books and fairy tales were important influences. Her work often uses imagery from fairy tales with a sinister edge in which there is a malicious domination, a subvertion of natural order or exposes social realities that are unpolite or polemic like abortion. Rego's style is often compared to cartoon illustration. As in cartoons, animals are often depicted in human roles and situations. Later work adopts a more realistic style, but sometimes keeps the animal references - the Dog Woman series of the 1990s, for example, is a set of pastel pictures depicting women in a variety of dog-like poses (on all fours, baying at the moon, and so on).
Rego has also painted a portrait of Germaine Greer, which is in the National Portrait Gallery in London, as well as the official presidency portrait of Jorge Sampaio.

IN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Rego

Links:

Paula Rego: http://library.thinkquest.org/17016/
View works by Paula Rego online: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/paula_rego.htm
Don't flinch, don't hide: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,850737,00.html
Secret Histories: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1263091,00.html
The Saatchi Gallery; About Paula Rego and her art: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/paula_rego_about.htm