‘Indefatigable, curious, 100% original’: female artists on Paula Rego
‘She painted her innermost self’ Rachel Whiteread
Paula Rego was an outstanding and courageous visual artist who for decades painted her innermost self, inspiring two generations and going down in history as one of the great female painters of this century. She will be missed.
‘She opened us to the possibilities of being brave in our work’Sonia Boyce
She was such an insightful, hardworking and mischievous artist. I first came across her curious watercolours of girls doing awful things to their pets in the 1980s and have been a fan ever since. They were hilarious, surprising and wildly imaginative. Paula opened us all to the possibilities of being daring and brave in our work. There’s no one like her. What a loss.
‘Her paintings are as powerful as you allow them to be’Lubaina Himid
I never met Paula Rego although she seems to have been a part of British contemporary art for a very long time. Her paintings frighten me, their deep depictions of brutality and pain, whether speaking of fascist regimes or domestic control, are as powerful as you allow them to be.
‘She left behind a cluster of devoted students’Tacita Dean
As a student at Falmouth School of Art in the mid-1980s, I had a oneto-one tutorial with Paula Rego that I have never forgotten. I remember exactly where I was sitting, the light in the room, even the time of day is transposed in my mind’s eye with the distinctive choreographic invention of some of her most famous paintings. She had arrived on the train from London after a show at the Edward Totah Gallery and the small catalogue was feverishly being passed around with its liquid zoomorphic personages and vivid array of colours. She was immediately a powerful presence with enormous European charm and sophistication – a bit of something that came from elsewhere, but childlike, too. She made a huge impression that day and left behind a cluster of devoted students. These first encounters are important, and she will always have a special place in my personal pantheon of artists. A defiant painter who worked with the stuff of herself, she was indefatigable, courageous, single-minded, endlessly imaginative, resolutely curious and 100% original.
‘Generous and completely free’ Rose Wylie
It is always interesting when another artist is exactly the same age … I remember with much affection those early imaginative works when she was, I think, with Blond [Fine Art] – different from anyone else: generous, and completely free. And her tough later work: distinct colour, the polish on the black boot. I remember she came to a show I had at the Stephen Lacey Gallery, London, she walked round the work with me and I can’t remember a word she said, I think she was wearing green … but the fact she had come and was talking about the paintings was enough – the exciting thing. Never to be forgotten … I’m very sorry she has died.
‘Drawing the un-drawable’ Chantal Joffe
What to say? I don’t want her to be gone: I want her to still be there, ahead of me, working, painting, thinking. I want to keep seeing new work she has made. I remember a tutorial she gave 30 years ago at the Royal College [of Art]; I remember I saw her from a distance at the opening of her Milton Keynes show, still beautiful in a spotty dress; I remember the first time I saw her series of Depression pastels and felt such a sense of her drawing the undrawable.
‘She is a guiding light’ Jenny Saville
Paula Rego’s work uncovered a type of female experience that no one had depicted before. Her masterful and persistent vision makes her a guiding light to artists around the world.
‘She portrayed the untidy and raw parts of humanity’ Marilyn Minter
The first time I saw Paula’s work, in an art magazine, I remember thinking: “Why have I never seen this artist’s work before?! Why is this artist not better known?” It was shocking to see work that good by someone I didn’t know about already. I can only assume it’s because of the honest way she portrayed the untidy and raw parts of humanity, especially the lives and bodies of women. I don’t know where I first saw the O’Vinho [2007] lithographs, but I remember thinking about their brutal honesty.
‘A radiant smile’ Celia Paul
Paula has always been a support to me – even in the most difficult times. Whenever we said goodbye to each other she always added “God Bless” and gave me her radiant smile.
‘She was a master storyteller’ Caroline Walker
Paula Rego is an artist I have admired since I was a teenager. I was immediately drawn to her figurative paintings, the very fact of them felt daring and defiant in a time when figuration wasn’t exactly considered the epitome of contemporary art. I don’t think anyone captures the experiences of women the way she did, with such a direct, visceral and psychological force, which leaves one seeing the world differently. She was a master storyteller of the physical and emotional trials of real life, often intertwined with the fictional and symbolic world of fairytales. Her subjects always feel physically very much of this world, with every emotion laid bare through her remarkable skill. Nothing is arbitrary in her work, every mark means something and the confidence and intention with which they are laid down is unique. She leaves behind an incredible lifetime of work, which I know I will continue to be inspired by, as I’m sure many other generations of artists will also.
‘Intimacy and power’ Toyin Ojih Odutola
It’s not simply the breadth and variety of Paula Rego’s catalogue, nor the decades-long commitment to her studio work, what always stayed with me was her intimacy with materials – any and all of them – and how that blurred the visual languages she developed in her mission to expound the storytelling of her pictures. There’s power in seeing a fellow, soft pastel draftsperson playing on the surface well into her 80s. To me, drawing is the most immediate application and space, where the messy meets the honest, and she coagulated all the parts of herself into her drawings in such a way that gave creative license a distinctly, womanly form.