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Paula Rego: »uncompromising artist«
Photo: i-Images / imago/i Images
The British-Portuguese painter Paula Rego is dead. As confirmed by London's Victoria Miro Gallery, the artist died in London at the age of 87 after a short illness.
Rego became known as a feminist artist and critic of the dictatorship in Portugal under President Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
Born in Lisbon in 1935, Rego grew up as a child of liberal parents in the »Estado Novo« run by Salazar.
From an early age she was preoccupied with themes of oppression and authority: at the age of 15 she painted a depiction of torture and violence entitled »The Interrogation«.
Rego's father, a staunch anti-fascist, sent her to Britain in 1951.
There she studied art at the Slade School in London.
Although Rego lived in Great Britain for decades, later in her work she often referred to her youth in Portugal.
Her painting Salazar Vomiting the Homeland, for example, denounces the dictatorship.
As a feminist, Rego addressed sexuality and violence against women in her works, researching their representation in Portuguese culture.
In 1998 she created a series of paintings entitled »Abortion«.
Portugal had recently voted in a referendum against relaxing abortion laws.
In 2008-2009 she created another series entitled »Female Genital Mutilation«.
The representation of women "revolutionized"
Rego has had solo exhibitions worldwide.
In 1960 her paintings were shown with artists such as David Hockney of the London Group.
She received honorary doctorates from several universities, including Oxford and later Lisbon.
With the democratization of Portugal in the 1970s, Rego became one of the country's best-known artists.
In 2009, a museum of her works opened in the coastal town of Cascais.
"Portuguese culture has lost one of its most important and irreverent creators," commented Carlos Carreiras, mayor of the city of Cascais, on her death.
'She emerged as a woman, a human being and an artist.' Maria Balshaw, director of Tate Britain, called Rego an 'uncompromising artist of exceptional imagination who uniquely reinterprets the way women's lives and stories are portrayed has revolutionized".
ime/AP/Reuters