This wonderful video explaining a key painting by Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego (1935-2022) is worth a watch, if only for the fascinating detail about her artistic process and her poignant personal life.
But it’s a video that’s hit the news because Rego is to receive her first ever large-scale exhibition in the Nordic region next year, at the Edvard Munch museum in Oslo. She took much inspiration from Munch, inspiration clearly visible in her colour-rich, wildly imaginative figurative paintings.
The Dance (1988), featured in the video, has obvious links to Munch’s The Dance of Life (1899), the Munch museum says.
The Dance of Life or Life’s Dance is an 1899 expressionist painting, with the stages of life represented by a young virgin in white, a mature woman dressed in red and an old widow in black.
Rego, a revered, influential political artist and feminist icon, was part of the major traveling exhibition Women Painting Women, and is featured in the Art Gallery of Ontario’s current book for sale from that show. The painting above, Bride, is from Rego’s Dog Women, the 1994 series noted for showing powerful, bestial women, subverting traditional female roles.
Below, more of Rego’s works, from the Victoria Miro gallery in London.
Instagram for Paula Rego’s studio, here.
More about Paula Rego at the Munch museum, here.
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I wish I could attend the exhibit and see her work in person.
Yes. Among exhibitions that I’d definitely put on a list, this one (recently announced) moved right to the top. A nice Spring-Summer exploration of Oslo would also be good – never been. (Exhibition runs April through early October, 2026)