WHAT? Paula Rego: Letting Loose 

WHERE? Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW

WHEN? Now until 11th November.  Free to visit 

WHY GO? For empowering art. London just can’t get enough of Paula Rego and this is the latest exhibition to pay homage to one of the greatest female artists of our generation who died in June 2022 last year.  

This, claims her filmmaker son Nick Willing, is perhaps the most personal as it represents a major breakthrough in her career when she switched from collage work to the more free style bold splashy paintings we know and love so well.  It launched her into the world of major exhibitions both in the UK and US.

Themed around Rego’s childhood fantasies of mythological figures and animals, it’s spontaneous and riddled with whimsical creatures along with her interpretations of the characters in many of the intriguing operas she enjoyed watching with her father as a girl in 1950’s Lisbon.

The Opera Paintings on show were completed in 1983 and, she admitted, also secretly referenced her own operatic turbulence in private life. 

They led to the first public showings of her work at two major exhibitions in New York, and thankfully they did otherwise the world would not have appreciated such a great talent. 

IN THE KNOW Watch Rego at work in the accompanying video clip online, taken from the brilliant documentary Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories directed by her son, Nick Willing in 2017. Her love of opera shines though with the voice of Maria Callas in the background. 

She always worked in her studio with music, opera in the morning and Fado in the afternoon.