Paula Rego's brushes and palettes at Serralves

Serralves hosts an exhibit on Paula Rego's paintings that encompass the artist's art work between 1960 and the present time. The display will be on show from 25th October 2019 till 8 March 2020.

The "EM PAULA REGO: Colecção de Serralves" traces etchings and drawings, from the 60's and the 70's of the acclaimed Portuguese painter. The works presented touch in many themes and techniques, namely, white-acrylic canvases, leading to visual abstractionism and political remark as well as the narrative and figured approach that characterise Rego's work.

Dame Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego is particularly known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks, evolving from abstract towards representational art work. Later on, for much of her career, Rego turned the brush on oils outlining feminism, with colour compositions on folk-themes from Portugal.

This time, the starting point is the artwork deposited in the Museum and now put to the public eye on the occasion of the 30 years of the Serralves Foundation, which include Paula Rego's Etching and aquatint on paper "Two Girls and a Dog of 1987".

Paula Rego's "The Vivian Girls as Windmills", which form part of the painter's series of paintings entitled Vivian Girls, dated 1984, and inspired by The Realms of the Unreal, by Henry Darger will be included in this retrospective, as well. Rego first came into contact with the work of the North American artist in 1979, when she visited the Outsiders exhibition in the Hayward Gallery, in London.

Literature and folklore are unique and creative in Paula Rego's work, subject to various reinterpretations.

Possessão is the most important piece in the collection, of seven oil pastels on canvas, created for the 2004 exhibition in Serralves, as Rego works revolve around women and "the physical reality of women as human beings in the physical world", causing the painter to be associated with feminism. Rego has been known to rebuke critics who read too much sexual content into her work.

Paula Rego studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London and was an exhibiting member of the London Group, along with David Hockney and Frank Auerbach. She was the first artist-in-residence at the National Gallery in London.

The painter lives and works in London.

On display at Serralves Museum. From 25th October 2019 till 8th March. Monday to Friday: 10am-6pm; Saturdays and Sunday: 10am-7pm