Gallery Visit: Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature

The Paula Rego exhibition offers audiences the chance to experience the some of the most accessible work of an internationally celebrated artist. The exhibits have been in numerous presentations over the years. The scope of the exhibition keeps its focus on the artist's prints and graphics, encapsulating the literary subject matter she excelled in for decades.

“Throughout her life, Paula Rego used printmaking as a central tool of her art. Taking inspiration from literature, she connected with stories in very personal ways, using them to articulate the conditions of her own life and draw her desires, dreams, fears, and traumas into sequences of remarkable pictures."

Brian Cass, Senior Curator, Hayward Gallery Touring.

Artist Paula Rego (1935-2022) conjured up her figurative cast of character-based scenarios in series after series of powerful paintings, drawings and prints that referenced themes from literature, her Portuguese heritage and modern morality, particularly in relation to the role of women in the family.

The exhibition brings together three of her series in printmaking: Nursery Rhymes, Peter Pan and Jane Eyre. These print series reflect the artist's fascination with folklore, fairy tales and women's classic literature. There is a calculated synergy between Rego's approach to visualising dark characterisations and the striking figures populating children's nursery rhymes.

Her visions of James Barrie's Neverland, and the turbulent relationships of Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, explore childhood fantasy and moral ambiguity and her own form of feminist ideology, viewed through the artist's lens that stays with you long after your visit.

About the author

Paul Barratt

Paul Barratt started working in contemporary art galleries in 1989, having graduated in Fine Art from Goldmsith’s, London University. He initially worked at Anthony d’Offay Gallery, one of the contemporary art dealers, who dominated the London art market in the 80s and 90s. He was approached by the Lisson Gallery to be gallery manager for the influential art dealer Nicholas Logsdail. This was followed by a short period in New York at Gladstone Gallery, to work for visionary art dealer Barbara Gladstone, working with the artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney.

 

On his return to London, Paul secured a place on the postgraduate curatorial course at the Royal College of Art, to complete an MA. After graduation in 2001, he worked as an independent curator on several projects in Oslo, London, Brighton and Basel, before joining Paul Vater at his design agency Sugarfree in 2004. He has worked with Paul ever since.

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