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Paula Rego: Nursery Rhymes
The bold, distinctive style of Paula Rego’s paintings has acquired for her not only an ever-increasing critical reputation but also an unusually large and enthusiastic following. Her be-ribboned little-girl heroines and fairy-tale characters seem firmly rooted in childhood, yet the innocence of this art is darkened by the underlying themes of power, domination and rebellion, sexuality and gender, that run through her work. Here Rego has turned to the nursery rhyme as a source for her imagery. It is a genre that perfectly complements her art; full of double meanings, rhymes are written from a child’s perspective but are open to adult interpretation. Twenty-six well-known nursery rhymes are accompanied by a series of etchings which she has executed spontaneously as a child might, drawing directly on the plate without preparatory planning. Following the traditions of earlier artists such as Beatrix Potter, she treats the fantastic realistically, dressing animals in human costume and using dream-like dislocations of scale. These are wonderfully comic and rich illustrations with a hint of the sinister, that turn classic nursery rhymes into colourful stories about folly and delusion, cruelty, convention and sex.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Marina Warner • Humpty Dumpty • Jack and Jill • Baa, baa, black sheep
See-saw, Margery Daw • Little Miss Muffet • Ride a cock-horse • Mary, Mary, quite contrary
Who killed Cock Robin? • Old Mother Hubbard • Hey diddle diddle • Rub-a-dub-dub • Three
blind mice • Mother Goose • Goosey, goosey gander • Ladybird, ladybird • Rock-a-bye, baby
Polly, put the kettle on • Old King Cole • How many miles to Babylon • Hickety, pickety
Sing a song of sixpence • A frog he would a wooing-go • The old woman who lived in a
shoe • Ring-a-ring o’ roses • There was a man of double deed • The grand old Duke of York
Table of Contents
Introduction by Marina Warner • Humpty Dumpty • Jack and Jill • Baa, baa, black sheep
See-saw, Margery Daw • Little Miss Muffet • Ride a cock-horse • Mary, Mary, quite contrary
Who killed Cock Robin? • Old Mother Hubbard • Hey diddle diddle • Rub-a-dub-dub • Three
blind mice • Mother Goose • Goosey, goosey gander • Ladybird, ladybird • Rock-a-bye, baby
Polly, put the kettle on • Old King Cole • How many miles to Babylon • Hickety, pickety
Sing a song of sixpence • A frog he would a wooing-go • The old woman who lived in a
shoe • Ring-a-ring o’ roses • There was a man of double deed • The grand old Duke of York
- GenresArt
72 pages, Hardcover
Published January 24, 2019
20 people want to read
About the author
Paula Rego
58 books10 followersPaula Rego was born in Lisbon on 26 January 1935. She grew up in a republican and liberal family, linked to both English and French culture, and studied at St. Julian's School in Carcavelos, spending her childhood and adolescence in Estoril. In the 1950s, her father encouraged her to pursue her artistic career away from the Portugal of Salazar's dictatorship, and Paula Rego enrolled at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London, aged just 17. She met several artists at the school, including her future husband, Victor Willing, whom she married in 1959 and with whom she would later have three children (Carolina, Victoria and Nicholas).
A painter and art critic, Victor Willing (1928, Alexandria - 1988, London) became one of the foremost critics of Paula Rego's work and, on several occasions, made what have proved to be some fundamental interpretations of her work. In fact, many of her pieces contain either explicit or implicit references to "Vic". These references are most noticeable in work produced from the mid-1980s, while her husband was in the final stages of the multiple sclerosis which eventually led to his death.
Having divided her time between Portugal and London throughout the 1960s, Paula Rego settled permanently in London in 1976. However, she continued to visit Portugal frequently, returning mostly to her family home in Ericeira. This house was to become a regular feature of her artistic work, since it held many memories and evoked images relating to a certain "Portuguese culture" she associated with her childhood. A further link to Portuguese culture would come later, in the form of Lila Nunes, Vic's former nurse, who is of Portuguese background and has been Paula's favourite model since 1988.
Paula Rego's work got her important recognition fairly early on in her career but it was in particular after the 1990s, when the artist was already in her fifties, that she became a fundamental reference not only in Portuguese and English art circles, but all over the world. She was regularly invited to produce work for galleries and specific exhibitions, often establishing a dialogue with their collections. In 1990, she was appointed the first Associated Artist of the National Gallery in London.
With her prodigious imagination, Paula Rego has explored many different techniques and artistic languages over the course of her career, while continuing to display surprising coherence throughout her work. She has held countless solo and retrospective exhibitions at leading international museums and galleries, as well as winning a host of awards and prizes.
She currently lives and works in London, and is represented by Marlborough Fine Art.
A painter and art critic, Victor Willing (1928, Alexandria - 1988, London) became one of the foremost critics of Paula Rego's work and, on several occasions, made what have proved to be some fundamental interpretations of her work. In fact, many of her pieces contain either explicit or implicit references to "Vic". These references are most noticeable in work produced from the mid-1980s, while her husband was in the final stages of the multiple sclerosis which eventually led to his death.
Having divided her time between Portugal and London throughout the 1960s, Paula Rego settled permanently in London in 1976. However, she continued to visit Portugal frequently, returning mostly to her family home in Ericeira. This house was to become a regular feature of her artistic work, since it held many memories and evoked images relating to a certain "Portuguese culture" she associated with her childhood. A further link to Portuguese culture would come later, in the form of Lila Nunes, Vic's former nurse, who is of Portuguese background and has been Paula's favourite model since 1988.
Paula Rego's work got her important recognition fairly early on in her career but it was in particular after the 1990s, when the artist was already in her fifties, that she became a fundamental reference not only in Portuguese and English art circles, but all over the world. She was regularly invited to produce work for galleries and specific exhibitions, often establishing a dialogue with their collections. In 1990, she was appointed the first Associated Artist of the National Gallery in London.
With her prodigious imagination, Paula Rego has explored many different techniques and artistic languages over the course of her career, while continuing to display surprising coherence throughout her work. She has held countless solo and retrospective exhibitions at leading international museums and galleries, as well as winning a host of awards and prizes.
She currently lives and works in London, and is represented by Marlborough Fine Art.
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March 22, 2022
I loved Paula Rego's artwork with the nursery rhymes!
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