Paula Rego: a Retrospective - Tapa blanda

Born in Portugal, Paula Rego studied at the Slade School of Art, and since 1976 she has lived and worked in London. Rego is a figurative painter, interested in human identity and interaction. Using play and storytelling as strategies, she makes paintings of figures and families, individuals and situations which articulate the complexities of the human subject. Her paintings often seem to be suspended stories, showing patterns of behaviour the outcomes of which we must resolve according to our own experience and understanding. Through early collages, paintings using animal characters or the dramatic highlights of opera, pictures of figures and families, and situations inspired by tales and fables, this volume traces Rego's development. The work includes an analysis of Paula Rego's early work by her late husband Vic Willing. Ruth Rosengarten, a friend of Rego's who speaks to her regularly about her painting, discusses the more recent work. Judy Collins writes about the artist's drawings and the part they play in the genesis of her paintings, and Fiona Bradley assesses Rego in terms of contemporary art history and theory.