Paula Rego
Dame Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego DBE RA GCSE GOSE GColCa (Portuguese: [ˈpawlɐ ˈʁeɣu]: 26 January 1935 – 8 June 2022) was a Portuguese-British visual artist, widely considered the pre-eminent woman artist of the late 20th and early 21st century, known particularly for her paintings and prints based on storybooks.[1] Rego's style evolved from abstract towards representational, and she favoured pastels over oils for much of her career. Her work often reflects feminism, coloured by folk-themes from her native Portugal.
In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Figueiroa and the second or paternal family name is Rego.
Paula Rego
8 June 2022 (aged 87)
Portuguese/British
Painting, printmaking
Rego studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and was an exhibiting member of The London Group, along with David Hockney and Frank Auerbach. In 1989 she became the second artist-in-residence, after the scheme re-started, at the National Gallery in London, after Jock McFadyen, who was the first in 1981.[2] She lived and worked in London.
Early life[edit]
Rego was born on 26 January 1935 in Lisbon, Portugal.[3] Her father was an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company and was ardently anti-fascist.[4][5] Her mother was a competent artist but, as a conventional Portuguese woman from the early 20th century, gave her daughter no encouragement towards a career, even though she began drawing at age 4.[6] The family was divided in 1936 when her father was posted to work in the United Kingdom. Rego's parents left her behind in Portugal in the care of her grandmother until 1939. Rego's grandmother was to become a significant figure in her life, as she learned from her grandmother and the family maid many of the traditional folktales that would one day make their way into her art work.[7]
Rego's family were keen Anglophiles, and Rego was sent to the only English-language school in the Lisbon area at the time, Saint Julian's School in Carcavelos, which she attended from 1945 to 1951.[3] St Julian's School was Anglican and this, combined with the hostility of Rego's father to the Roman Catholic Church, served to create a distance between Rego and full-blooded Roman Catholic belief, although she was nominally a Roman Catholic and lived in a devoutly Roman Catholic country. Rego 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.[8]
Education[edit]
In 1951, Rego was sent to the United Kingdom to attend a finishing school called The Grove School, in Sevenoaks, Kent. Unhappy there, Rego attempted in 1952 to start studies in art at the Chelsea School of Art in London, but was advised against this choice by her legal guardian in Britain, David Phillips, who had heard that a young woman had become pregnant while a student there. He suggested to her parents that the Slade School of Fine Art was a more respectable choice and helped her achieve a place there. From 1952 to 1956, she attended the Slade School.[9]
Rego's works can be found in a number of public institutions, including: