Paula Rego: Thirty Years of Print

Online Only - Christie’s is pleased to announce the online only auction of one of the largest private collections of prints by the eminent contemporary artist and printmaker Paula Rego, open for bidding from 10-19 March 2015. Coinciding with the artist’s 80^th birthday this year, the sale will include all of her most important graphic series, with many sold-out editions and rarities spanning over 30 years of her highly acclaimed oeuvre.

Lucia Tro Santafe, specialist in charge of the sale, commented: “Rego is one of our greatest living contemporary artists. Her powerful, subversive imagery, sometimes macabre, often humorous, place her in the great tradition of artist storytellers, such as Goya, Daumier and Picasso. This collection is an excellent opportunity for collectors to acquire her prints.”

A prolific printmaker, much of Rego’s graphic work is devoted to narrative themes, inspired by the subjects of storytelling, gender and maturity. Drawing on her life experiences in both England and her native Portugal, Rego has maintained a deeply involved approach to printmaking which is evident in the artist’s supreme command of intaglio and lithographic techniques. The collection will be exhibited at Christie’s, London from 14-17 March 2015. Bidding starts from £400. To register your interest please visit www.christies.com/multidaysales/paula-rego.

In 1989 Rego created a series of 31 etchings and aquatints titled The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (estimate: £20,000-30,000), exploring the subject of childhood where she references both traditional stories and fairytales and her own memories from Portugal. Rego’s Nursery Rhymes alters the viewer’s familiarity with these well-known stories, drawing out their undertones of madness and desire. In Baa Baa Blacksheep an imposing ram entwines its leg around a young girl in a suggestive encounter reminiscent of Leda and the Swan. Similar scenes of disorder can also be seen in Rego’s series Peter Pan, 1992 (estimate: £15,000-20,000). In Captain Hook, Rego replaces the element of make-believe implied in the original text by J. M. Barrie with realism, depicting Hook no longer as a theatrical villain but instead vulnerable and frail.

Rego is renowned for her controversial works exploring gender politics and taboos, including alcoholism in a series of vignettes titled O Vinho, 2007 (estimate: £8,000-12,000), and the Abortion Series, 1999 (estimate: £10,000-15,000), Rego’s outraged response to the failed referendum on abortion in Portugal the previous year. In her famous series of lithographs inspired by Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, 2001-2002, Rego highlights the social constraints imposed upon women and their capacity for great power and rebellion. In Come to Me (estimate: £2,500-3,500), Rego’s Jane is depicted in the throes of doubt and suspicion as she tries to make up her mind whether or not to return to Rochester. ‘She [Jane] hears his voice calling and when she calls him in the book she runs to him. But she’d better have her doubts of course. It’s not such a good deal. But she goes to him and that is supposed to be a happy ending. It is. But here I put her doubting.’ (The artist, quoted in: T.G. Rosenthal, Paula Rego – The Complete Graphic Work, Thames & Hudson, London, p. 176). Rego’s model for Jane was Lila Nunes, the artist’s long term assistant and muse.

Paula Rego has received many accolades; in 2004 she was awarded the Grã Cruz da Ordem de Sant'Iago da Espada by the President of Portugal and a museum dedicated to Rego's work, the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, was opened in Cascais, Portugal. In 2010 Rego was made a Dame of the British Empire and continues to work in her north London studio.