Turning Tables

Powerful and darkly humorous, Paula Rego’s paintings and drawings use stories to examine her own experiences. John McEwen commends two current exhibitions of her work

- John McEwen

DAME PAULA REGO is Portugal’s most famous living artist, but, thanks to an anglophile upbringing and marriage to the painter Victor Willing (1928–88), for half a century, London has been her base. She calls herself a Londoner and is as honoured here as in her native land: a dame and the recipient of many honorary doctorates, including from both Oxford and Cambridge.Now, approaching her 83rd birthday, she has her first public exhibitions in Britain for 10 years: a major show of recent work at the Jerwood gallery in Hastings, east Sussex, and a survey of drawings dating back 40 years at Pallant House gallery in Chichester, West Sussex.

The Jerwood show is curated by Colin Wiggins, formerly of the National gallery, who, 30 years ago, arranged for Dame Paula to be the gallery’s first associate artist. Initially, she refused, because virtually the whole collection is by men, but she soon retracted, acknowledging that men did paint women.