Painting stories
Paula Rego painted stories, she needed a story to paint.
At the beginning of her career she had interest in folk tales, and in her childhood, also fear had been of value in making the art of Paula what it is. Art had, for Paula Rego, exorcised fear. The artist declared in interviews that art was her way of trying to give a face to fear in order to exorcise it. She tried to give ‘fear a face’ in her art
The artist was born in Portugal and when she was sixteen she went to study in Great Britain at the Slide school of art. In London she get married and had her three children.
In 1990 Paula was the first Associate artist of the National Gallery in London, she had a studio and a stipend of one year to paint pictures related to the collection of the museum. The paintings from the study period at the National Gallery were : The Bullfighter’s Godmother and The fitting, that took note of the girl’s dress in Jan Steen’s ‘The effect of intollerance’. Saint Jerome in his study of Antonello da Messina was was instead the inspiration for Time–past and Present.
Dog women
At the Biennale of Venice 2022 were displayed two of the paintings dedicated to the ‘Dog Women’. These series of paintings this series has been created in 1994.
The idea came from a story written by a friend . It was the story of an old lady who lives alone with her pets . A voice of a wailing child down the chimney invites her to eat the dogs. The scary story was the inspiration for the Dog women.
These paintings were executed directly with the pastels onto paper and then put on the support of aluminium. Her model was Lilia Nunes. Lila Nunes was Portuguese and went to live as au-pair in the house to help her very ill husband, Victor Willing.
Paula Rego painted the Dog women as strong women, the dog is an animal similar to the human. She thought that women and persons were trained to do certain thinks , but they had also a part of animal. Their body and spirit are independent.
Biancaneve and Pinocchio
For the painting dedicated to Pinocchio, she used her own family like model.
In many interviews Paula Rego insisted on the nature of her attachment to her childhood. Her art has to do with experience of her childhood. She painted the world of her past, the world of her childhood in Portugal. When she was a child Pinocchio and Snowwhite were her favorite films,This is the reason why a whole series of works was dedicated to Snow White and Pinocchio, but revisited and seen in a different way from those told in fairy tales. This is the reason why a whole series of works was dedicated to Snow White and Pinocchio, but revisited and seen in a different way from those told in fairy tales.
Paula Rego’s stories have left Venice, but they remain in the memories of all those who enjoyed the blue room set up by Cecilia Alemanni at the Venice Biennale 2022.
if you desire to book a visit to the Biennale or discover art in Venice you can contact me.
Bibliography : Paula Rego, John Mc Ewen, 2002
The milk of dream, Venice Biennale Catalogue 2022
Fiorella Pagotto — I am an art historian and a writer, author of essays on Venetian art history, biographies of artists. I also work on architectural history and restoration. I have been a guide to the city of Venice and the Venetian villas since 2012.
Link alla versione italiana