In the gallery, only the last picture is not a Rego. It was painted by Jack Vettriano. When I first saw the painting of Rego that showed couples dancing under moonlight, it reminded me of Vettriano’s work.
The artist was born in Portugal in 1935.
A great montage showing the artists works.
Price ranges: Ragu has worked in many disciplines including ceramic dolls which can be found for few hundred dollars. Etchings which go from one to five thousand dollars. She sold a pastel work titled Broken Promises for 1.168 million dollars. Acrylic record is for a work titled Looking back which sold for 1.26 million.
I compare the artist to Jack Vettriano. He is a highly successful commercial illustrator known for painting couples dancing along the beach, sometimes with a manservant holding an umbrella. Both artists get the emotion of romance and sometimes desperation. Below is classic example of Vettriano’s art.
A short interview featuring the artist and Robert Hughes.
Paula Rego was born in Lisbon, Portugal in the year 1935. Rego’s father was an engineer and took a job abroad. Her parents moved to London and the artist went to stay with grandmother for a few years. Rego was busy listening to stories and fables of magical lands from her grandmother and one of the maids of the house.
Rego was sent to a school that was different from her Catholic background in that they were Anglican. Faith also has an important role in the artist’s work.
The artist was then sent to a finishing school in London that she hated. She quit this and enrolled in the Chelsea School of art. Her guardian didn’t tell her parents. Neither he nor Rego knew how they would react to her hanging about the crazy and wild artistic crowd. Eventually she told her parents and to her suprise they didn’t mind. She then enrolled in the Slade School of Art in London.
She met her husband while at the School, but he was married. After the divorce, the couple was married and given a house by Rego’s father. Rego’s father was the owner of an eletrical company. He died and Rego’s husband took over the company. This was during a revoluntionary time in Portugal. Even though Paula and her husband backed the left wing takeover of government, this ended up destroying their business. The family then moved to London for the rest of Willing’s lifetime.
The artist first’s big show was with the London Group in 1962. A popular group that included such art celebrities as David Hockney. The seventies and eighties brought the artist major exhibitions in New York and Amsterdam.
Rego is in many large museum collections including 46 pieces owned by the Tate Gallery in London. She even has a museum in Cascais, Portugal that is named for the artist and specializes in her works.
Rego has become a naturalized British citizen.
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