Paula Rego [Paperback]

John McEwen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 1997

The monumentality and psychological drama of Paula Rego's paintings have established her as one of the most important figurative painters of her generation. Her first retrospective exhibition in London in 1988 brought together a range of her dramatically simplified paintings of the ambiguous relations of men, women and children. This study was first published in 1992, but since then Rego has produced new work, including the "Peter Pan" etchings, the "Dog Woman" series and "The Ostriches", which are illustrated and discussed. Bringing together paintings, prints and drawings alongside documentary photographs, this book features a revised chronology, and list of exhibitions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Born in Portugal in 1935, her girlhood spent under the dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, London-based painter Paula Rego fiercely expressed her revulsion at a repressive patriarchal regime in Salazar Vomiting the Homeland. Her continually evolving style echoes Arshile Gorky's free-floating forms, Jean Dubuffet's naive spontaneity and Miro's pendulous sexual imagery, yet she turns her varied sources to her own ends. Fairy tales and Jungian archetypes pervade the childlike yet menacing Two Men Separated by a River of Blood. As British art critic McEwen notes in this lavishly illustrated monograph, many women see themselves and their predicaments in Rego's art--for example, in The Bride's Secret Diary , which gives palpable form to the emotional subtext of a marriage, or in the vibrant, delightful Opera and Red Monkey series, which caricature people in the form of animals. Rego's latest paintings speak of maternal loss and hope, of wisdom won with age, of private dreams projected onto an uncaring external world.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This is the first monograph to treat the complete works of important figurative painter Paula Rego. Through a strong combination of respect for tradition and an intensely female viewpoint, Rego created a body of work that is disarming in its seeming simplicity while containing private, secret worlds. The female form, drawn frequently from images of Rego's childhood in Portugal, appears in a variety of aspects--e.g., realistic, distorted, convoluted--but always as the artist's expression of her own experiences as a woman. The bold, bright exhilaration of depicting the secret world of feminine imagination and dreams dominates the works, and viewers are invited to share the novel experience of entering into this world. McEwen has written a thoughtful commentary on the personal, psychological, and creative life of a provocative contemporary woman artist.
- Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Phaidon Press; 2nd edition (April 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714836222
• ISBN-13: 978-0714836225
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,478,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paula Rego, March 30, 2008

By 

A. Tempest - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Paula Rego (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon)) (Paperback)

An excellent book about one of the finest & most challenging painters of our time. Paula Rego has produced some very unsettling images with enormous artistic skill. It is difficult to do justice to the complex psychological treatment of her subjects (often nursery rhymes) but the author, John McEwen, does a great job.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, August 30, 2011

By 

Cat - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Paula Rego (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon)) (Paperback)

I had only heard about Paula Rego from a professor from my college and he suggested that I look to her for inspiration for my art work. I was smitten by her work so I decided to get this particular book about her and was very happy I did. I didn't expect for the book to be as heavy as it was, but it was worth it; with the biography and the pictures of her works and some of her life, this book was very helpful and informative.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An overview, February 10, 2008

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T. D. Nielsen (albany, NY) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Paula Rego (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon)) (Paperback)

I had seen Paula Rego's work in a lot of museums and so on an impulse bought this book sight unseen. This book gives a complete overview of her work..it was interesting, but I found that my interest in Rego the artist has diminished after reading the book.