New exhibition of Paula Rego evokes period of metamorphosis

An exhibition with works by Paula Rego (1935-2022) from the 1980s, a period of great liberation and self-discovery for the Portuguese painter, will open on September 22nd at the Victoria Miro Gallery, in London, United Kingdom.

Entitled "Letting Loose", the exhibition presents a set of works that "perhaps more than any others, helped [Paula Rego] to understand herself and those close to her", according to her son, director Nick Willing, quoted in a text on the British gallery's online website.

In the 1980s, this phase of metamorphosis led to great discoveries and creative transformation for the artist, who saw her first major exhibitions take place in the United Kingdom and the United States, recalls the gallery where the exhibition will be held until November 11th.

"Moving away from a process of making collages - drawing and painting material that was then cut and organized into sophisticated figurative puzzles - [Paula Rego] began, before engaging in his childhood passion for painting as a game. Working quickly and fluidly, he embraced freedom as a methodology, inventing a cast of humans, animals and hybrid creatures that, in turn, allowed him to tell his own story", recalls the same text.

These changes in thematic and pictorial direction gave rise to important bodies of work, including "Girl and Dog", the Opera paintings and "Vivian Girls", as well as paintings inspired by a first visit to New York in 1983.

Until then, collage had allowed the artist to make clandestine comments on society, and the Portuguese fascist regime in particular, but her new working method, especially the use of anthropomorphism, "helped to dramatize the darkest aspects of human nature without mannerism or sentimentalism.”

The memories and experiences of Paula Rego, the issues of loyalty, love, passion, obsession and jealousy, including the dynamics that shaped her own marriage - at a time when her husband, the artist Victor Willing, was seriously ill with multiple sclerosis - "emerge in these works in a creative process that helped her identify her feelings in relation to certain situations".

By this time, the artist - who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she met her husband - was almost 50 years old, had been highly respected in Portugal since the 1960s, but her first solo exhibition in London, held at the AIR Gallery, it only took place in the summer of 1981.

However, the works that will now be brought together at the Victoria Miro Gallery quickly established her as an important voice in contemporary art, culminating in a solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 1988. A year later she was named the first associated artist of the British National Gallery, a recognition that would confirm the scale of its rise during this decade.

Paula Rego She used to say, "The reason I make pictures is to discover things," and series like "Girl and Dog" reveal her exploration of her feelings for Willing, including the complex emotions brought on by caring for him when he was ill.

Completed in 1983, Rego's paintings of the Opera House, on the other hand, recall visits to the Teatro São Carlos, in Lisbon, with his father, in the 1950s, "and his excitement at the intrigue and scandal that was unfolding both on stage and off." In an article published earlier this month by the British newspaper The Times, the son of Paula Rego recalls this transformative phase of her mother, reporting that she attributed the metamorphosis in her work to the influence of a visit from a friend, the Portuguese artist João Penalva, who, on one occasion, saw her about to cut a monkey out of her work.

"Why cut that beautiful monkey, Paula? Can't you leave it like that?", Penalva asked her, in the studio.
"Really? Can I do that?", exclaimed the artist, entering a decade of excess, liberation and detachment from previous rules: "Suddenly, it was no longer necessary to make art" - said the creator - "You could do anything ", in such a way that the son even commented on his work "Mom, you're going crazy!". To what Paula Rego she replied: "No, dear, I'm finally sane", remembers Nick Willing in the text about his mother's creative period.

The exhibition at Galeria Victoria Miro will be accompanied by a new publication, with an essay by Cecilia Alemani, the curator responsible for the 2022 Venice Art Biennale, and who decided to reserve a room dedicated to the work of Paula Rego, in this edition of the international exhibition.