Paula rego husband
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Giving Fear a Face: Paula Rego
(Born Lisbon, 26 January 1935). Portuguese-born British painter of figure, animal, and fantasy subjects. She studied at the Slade School, where she met her husband, the painter Victor Willing (1928–88). In the 1980s Rego became well known for her enigmatic figurative paintings, which often have a feeling of caricature as well as of fantasy. In 1990 she was appointed the first associate artist of the National Gallery, London. She painted murals in the restaurant of the gallery's new Sainsbury Wing in 1991, and in 1992 she became the first living artist to be given an exhibition in the gallery.
Text source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press)
Paula Rego grew up in Portugal under the shadow of dictatorship. She became aware of the power of the unspoken as keeping secrets was vital to survival. In a career that has spanned six decades, her paintings are frequently inspired by her personal fears, desires and a passion to fight injustice.
Tate curator Elena Crippa takes us through the work of Rego, from the personal l
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Who is Paula Rego?
As a young girl Rego spent hours drawing in her playroom at her grandmother’s house. She had a great imagination, and remembers that she was ‘afraid of everything’. Her parents encouraged her to become an artist, so she came to London to study at art school.
Rego’s pictures are often inspired by stories – from the traditional folk tales and nursery rhymes she heard her grandmother tell when she was a young girl to books that she has read more recently. Many of her paintings include different characters, and some groups of work tell a story that unfolds over a series of pictures.
Rego’s subjects are often female. Many of them are based on her model, Lila, who poses for her in her studio most days. Once in her pictures, the characters she creates seem to take on a life of their own – it is as if they have their own story to tell. Her studio is full of props, some found, some hand-made, stuffed toys, clothes, fabric and other objects. She once said, ‘you have to become the figures you’re drawing’.
‘Anything can happen in pictures’
Paula
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Dame Paula Rego RA (1935 - 2022)
2017Secrets and Stories, Casa das Histórias, Cascais
Depression Pictures, Marlborough Fine Art, London
2016Old Meets New, Casa das Histórias, Cascais
Dancing Ostriches, Marlborough Fine Art, London
Paintings and Etchings from the 1980s, Frieze Masters, London
2015Cousin Bazilio and Other Stories, Marlborough Galería, Madrid
The Poacher, Casa das Histórias, Cascais
2014The Last King of Portugal, Marlborough Fine Art, London
2013Dame with the goat’s foot and other stories, Marlborough Fine Art, London
2012Retrospective, The Gulbenkian Museum, Paris
Balzac and other Stories, Marlborough Fine Art, London
2010-11Retrospective exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey, Mexico; Pinacoteca de Sao Paulo
2010Oratorio, Marlborough Fine Art, London
2008Human Cargo, Marlborough Chelsea, New York
Retrospective Exhibition, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington
O Vinho, a series of eight lithographs, Marlborough Fine Art, London; Galeria Marlbor
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