Paula Rego Quotes about Art

Paula Rego was a famous figurative Portuguese painter and printmaker who lived in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her confronting works that told stories and for supporting various causes like abortion and genital mutilation. Famous Paula Rego artworks include “Dog Woman”, “The Dance”, “Dancing Ostriches”, “Swallows the Poison Apple”, “The Policeman’s Daughter”, “Sleeping”, “The Fitting”, “Snow White Playing with her Father’s Trophies”, “Celestina’s House”, “The Family”, “The Maids” and “The Interrogator’s Garden”.

Mini biography: Born Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego on the 26th of January, 1936 in Lisbon, Portugal. Her mother was Maria de São José Avanti Quaresma de Paiva and her father José Fernandes Figueiroa Rego was an electrical engineer. Rego married the artist Victor Willing in 1959 and they had three children: Nick, Victoria and Caroline Willing. The artist died on the 8th of June, 2022 in London, England at the age of 87. Paula Rego is buried at the Hampstead Cemetery, Hampstead, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain.

List of Famous Paula Rego Art Quotes

You can punish anybody in a picture. In pictures you can punish anybody you don’t like. I didn’t like my teacher, I hated her, so I’d punish her in the drawing. Paula Rego

I paint the women I know. I paint what I see. I make women the protagonists because I am one. Paula Rego

I always need a story. Without a story, I can’t get going. Maybe the story changes in the doing of it. I might discover it isn’t what I thought or intended. But I need it to find my way. I’m always looking for new stories. Paula Rego

I always know the people in my pictures. Very often they take the form of monkeys and bears and all sorts of things. It’s easier if you make them into animals because you can do things to animals that you can’t do to people because it’s too shocking. Paula Rego

It’s not like planning what they call “a career”. It took many years. I had bad luck and good luck, good dealers and bad dealers, and just kept working. Paula Rego

I cast nasty people as nasty characters, bullies and witches and so on. I use them in scenarios and take pleasure in their downfall. They can be skewered or hung or shown for the repellent creatures I feel they are. You can be as violent as you like in a picture. Paula Rego

Paula Rego Self-Portrait Pastel

More on Famous Portuguese Painter Paula Rego

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Related or similar popular artists and creatives include: Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Lucian Freud and other Famous British Artists.