{"id":50401,"date":"2022-09-13T00:01:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T23:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ericeiramag.pt\/?p=50401\/"},"modified":"2022-08-10T21:01:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T20:01:21","slug":"paula-rego-was-one-of-the-twenty-great-women-of-the-20th-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericeiramag.pt\/en\/paula-rego-was-one-of-the-twenty-great-women-of-the-20th-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Rego was one of the \u201cTwenty Great Women of the 20th Century\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Photography:<\/strong> DR<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The work of Paula Rego, probably the greatest Portuguese artist of the 20th century and the first two decades of the this century – born on 26 January 1935, dying on 8 June this year -, erupts against the silence like lightning in the dark, painting \u201cthe truth\u201d, as it appears written in the title of the biographical essay dedicated to her by In\u00eas Pedrosa on \u201cTwenty Great Women of the 20th Century\u201d.<\/p>\n

This chapter of In\u00eas Pedrosa’s book summarizes in just ten pages Paula Rego’s extensive and rich biographical and creative journey\u2026 Enough, even so, for Ericeira to be highlighted on several occasions. Her work \u201cimposes itself on us by the indomitable power of authenticity\u201d and the \u201cuniverse of women, tender and grotesque, enchanted and painful, where extremes coincide and the hard truth of bodies is exposed, without guilt or shame\u201d developed many of her roots from this seaside village.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An only child, in 1936 (that is, with only one year old) her parents left to England (where her father, Jos\u00e9 Fernandes Figueroa Rego \u2013 the last two surnames that name the family farm in Ericeira<\/a> – finished his education as an electrical engineer) and \u201cPaula stayed, alternately, with her paternal grandparents, who gave her freedom and fantasy, and with her maternal aunt, a resentful and unhappy woman who confined her to rules and discouragement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even while she lived in Estoril \u2013 in 1938 she had the onset of tuberculosis which made her parents move from Lisbon to Linha, where she lived until she was 16 \u2013 summers were spent with his paternal grandparents at the farm in Ericeira, \u201ca delightful place with a grandmother full of chicks in her pockets, a kitchen of infinite stories that exorcised fears through imagination. And in the basement of that house, Paula’s father had made a theatre, where he’d show foreign films \u2013 from Charlot to Mickey Mouse, which dazzled tiny Paula.\u201d<\/p>\n

she would return to Ericeira in the company of Vic Willling, with whom she would marry in 1959<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the age of 17 she went to London to study Fine Arts, where she would fall in love with Victor Willing, with whom she would return to Ericeira after the birth of her daughter Caroline, who was born in England. \u201cWe spent our time working. We had a wine cellar there that was divided in half and I worked on one side and Vic on the other. I’d paint and I’d draw, and draw, and draw, and draw. (\u2026) We were a bit isolated, we didn’t know anyone. We were going to the hotel in Ericeira to be with some Englishmen because Vic didn’t speak Portuguese. We even met very interesting people. We had picnics, it was the life!\u2026 We drank a lot. Then we talked a lot, discussed everything. We ordered books from abroad. I read all of Dostoevsky, I read Scott Fitzgerald, I read everything at that time. Also erotic books \u2013 L’Histoire d’O<\/em>, Henry Miller, all that\u2026 It was really good! And in the Summer friends from England would come here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s how they lived for about six years, between 1957 and 1963, when Vic started teaching in London – during this period they only went to England for the births of Victoria (in 1959, the year the couple finally married) and Nicholas, whom AZUL interviewed in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paula painted the most melancholy of dances in a big way, a couple drifting in the immobility of the landscape of Ericeira’s lost paradise<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The happy times of the couple and Paula would not last much longer: in 1965 Vic had a heart attack and the following year she said farewell to her father and father-in-law, and Vic fell ill with the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. The following decade would be even worse: in 1975 the company inherited from her father was expropriated in the period after the April Revolution; and in 1979 a blow hit and would mark her forever \u2013 \u201cshe was forced to sell the mythical house in Ericeira, out of an absolute need for money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Dan\u00e7a, 1988, Paula Rego<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1988, she was working on \u201cA Dan\u00e7a\u201d (whose action takes place with Milreu Fort as a background) when her husband dies. He had suggested that she’d paint this picture, as had happened on other occasions when her ideas would run out \u2013 \u00abPaint people dancing,” he had told her. \u201cAnd Paula painted the most melancholy of dances in a big way, a couple drifting in the immobility of the landscape of Ericeira’s lost paradise\u201d. When Vic passed away, she had to learn to let go of that comforting echo and to believe more than ever in herself and her work.<\/p>\n

\u201cEriceira’s paradise lost\u201d, to which the life and work of Paula Rego are viscerally linked \u2013 even more than umbilically \u2013 was the strongest memory that this enormous woman kept until the end of her earthly existence\u2026 Her Work will last beyond those who did not do her justice in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Portuguese painter closely linked to Ericeira is among the biographical essays published in a book by In\u00eas Pedrosa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":24946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society"],"yoast_head":"\nPaula Rego was one of the \u201cTwenty Great Women of the 20th Century\u201d - AZUL-ERICEIRA MAG | O melhor da Ericeira<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ericeiramag.pt\/en\/paula-rego-was-one-of-the-twenty-great-women-of-the-20th-century\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Paula Rego was one of the \u201cTwenty Great Women of the 20th Century\u201d - 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