Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature

Paula Rego’s radical art drew inspiration from a vast range of sources – from traditional folklore and fairy tales, to literary classics and nursery rhymes.

For Rego, these sources conveyed essential truths about the world, and throughout her life she turned to stories written in the English language. Rego connected with these literary sources in very personal ways, using them to articulate the conditions of her own life as well as work through her own dreams, anxieties, desires, and fears.

Her work tells stories that combine fantasy and imagination, innocence and cruelty, in order to explore the complexities of life and the experience of women in particular, in all its strangeness and mystery.

Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature will present three of the artist’s most ambitious series of graphic works; Jane Eyre, Nursery Rhymes and Peter Pan. Each series will be accompanied by a variety of personal items from the artist, many of which have never been publicly displayed before. 

Unseen preparatory sketches, etching plates and Rego’s very own childhood copy of Peter Pan will offer audiences an intimate portrayal of the artist’s lifelong fascination with literature and an insight into how the artist transformed this material into startlingly original, rebellious and unexpected images.