7 Facts about Portuguese artist Paula Rego
Who is itPaula Rego?
The famous Portuguese artist Paula Rego was born in Lisbon on January 26, 1935, into an upper-middle-class family with republican ideals, and under the influence of French and Anglo-Saxon cultures. His life was marked by his childhood spent with his grandmother Gertrudes Fernandes, who told him the traditional Portuguese tales that continue to mark his work. Attended St. Julian's School, in Carcavelos, where he early manifested his artistic qualities. At the age of 16, in 1952, on the advice of her father, a staunch anti-Salazarist, she emigrated to the United Kingdom where she attended Sevenoaks, a school designed to train young women for customs and behavior in society — in the words ofPaula Rego, "a finishing school to find a husband". The future painter abhorred the experience and was motivated by a teacher at the same school to follow her path in the field of arts. She tried to enroll at the Chelsea School of Art, in London, which was opposed by a friend of her father and her tutor, David Phillips, for having bad moral references of the same, forwarding her to The Slade School of Fine Art, for to consider a more reputable option capable of guaranteeing success. At that school, which he attended from 1952 to 1956, he met the English artist Victor Willing, with whom he would later marry and have three children (Nick Willing made a documentary for the BBC about his mother's life and work). The couple returned to Portugal in 1957 and, from 1962, with a house in the Camden Town neighborhood, they began to live alternately in Portugal and England). He struggled and worked tenaciously to impose himself on the artistic scene, havinginitially, it was very difficult to sell his paintings. She is currently one of the most famous painters in Portugal and internationally. Here are seven facts aboutPaula Rego.
7 facts aboutPaula Rego
1.Thanks to the Scholarship granted to him in 1975 by the Calouste FoundationGulbenkian did, from 1976 to 1979, research on Popular Tales that classified as "terrible tales", sordid and evil, with a cruelty thatnot found in other cultures, concluding that this "is life. People who don't have to eat, become strong and violent."
2. In 1983, he taught at Slade, confessing that he only did it out of necessity, because it's hard for him to say when he doesn't like a job, because that hurts the person.
3. All frames ofPaula Rego include figures representing people you know or have personally known, your family or characters from literary works.
4. Her work reflects her concerns with social issues, namely abortion, female genital excision, human trafficking, domestic violence and mistreatment of children, in addition to the facts of her own life that most marked her.
5. Jean Eire was inspired by Edwin Corley's work, "The Sargasso Sea", wherePaula Rego went to look for the crazy woman, mistreated by her husband, who nevertheless treated him with care when he needed her. Six lithographs from the Jane Eyre series (2001-2002) were used in 2005 by Royal Mail for a stamp collection.
6. In July 2015, the painting “The Cadet and his Sister" byPaula Rego, from 1988, sold for €1.6 million at Sotheby's auction.
7. While working, listen to operas by Verdi, especially Rigoletto and La Traviata, in the morning, and fado, after lunch (Amália and Camané, for example).
