Paula Rego
Paula Rego was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1934 to a rich family, and attended finishing school in Kent. From 1952 - 56 she studied at the Slade School of Art, London. Rego remained in Britain, though still spends a lot of time in Portugal. Though a household name in Portugal, Rego only received public acclaim in Britain in her 50s.
Paul Rego is considered as an artist who continually renews her practice, embracing traditional methodology rather than new media practice. She began with oil painting, and then progressed to collage and then pastel paintings but her main passion is drawing and the extension of that is printmaking of which she is considered one of the foremost graphic artists of her generation.It was her first solo show in 1989, titled, Nursery Rhymes, that confirmed her as a master of the printmaking medium.
Influenced by English nursery rhymes she had grown up with, it demonstrated her ability as a great story teller.
It is this notion of story telling and the oral tradition she grew up with in Portugal, absorbed by the folktales told by the women around her.
It is this idea of the oral tradition that influences the re-telling and the reinvention of those stories and the creation of new ones in her work.
Rego's work is heavily influenced by her childhood in Portugal; the landscapes, people, the stories, family life and its complexities. Though she permanently remained in London from 1976, it is those themes that dominate her work.
When Rego was born in Lisbon, it was three years into the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar. Her father, José, was an electrical engineer and her mother, Maria, had studied painting. When Rego, aged three, was diagnosed with incipient tuberculosis, the family moved to the seaside town of Estoril, spending summers in the fishing village of Ericeira, whose coastal landscapes feed her work.
Among other early influences were Goya, Mantegna and the surrealists, including Buñuel.
Rego married artist Vic Willing in 1959 and continued to create work while bringing up children.Rego recalled "If you were a married woman with children, no one took you seriously. But art doesn't have to be a higher thing; it can be like looking after children - very down to earth." (Quoted in 'Secret Histories' by Maya Jaggi, The Guardian July 2004)
Rego's storybook imagery often has a sinister and theatrical edge. She often uses theatre props, costumes, stuffed aniumals and the like as references to stage settings for her works. Rego lives in Hampstead, north London, and her studio in a Kentish Town mews is apprently like a backstage prop room and the playroom, with costumes for her life models (she favours 1940s and 50s clothes), mannequins and toys.
Also considered a political artist, Rego created a series of confronting works in response to a referendum on abortion in Portugal.
Rego also painted a protrait of Germaine Greer in 1995 which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Rego was appointed the first Associate Artist of the National Gallery, London and was the fourth woman painter to be made a dame. Rego has two children and is the mother-in-law to famous sculptor, Ron Mueck.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/paula_rego_articles.htm

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