Paula Rego in Bideford, Devon

A current exhibition at The Burton Art Gallery in Bideford, Devon with  some of Paula Rego's Jane Eyre lithographs:

Paula Rego: An Enduring Journey 

January 7 – February 20, 2023

Burton at Bideford

An Enduring Journey focuses on Rego’s printmaking oeuvre, bringing together almost fifty years of graphic works, which explore the themes of power, rebellion, sexuality and gender, grief and poverty.

We are delighted to be hosting an exhibition from the late Dame Paula Rego RA, one of the most important figurative artists of her generation, who placed women’s lives and stories at the centre of her work. Paula Rego: An Enduring Journey focuses on Rego’s printmaking oeuvre, and will include highlights from her almost fifty years of graphic works, which explore the themes of power, rebellion, sexuality and gender, grief and poverty. On display will be thirty-two prints, which come directly from the artist’s estate, and will be shown together with a group of the newly editioned prints from plates drawn before and set aside until now.

Over the course of her career, Rego produced a profound and ground-breaking body of prints. The work not only possesses the extraordinary imaginative power of her paintings, but reflects the innovative possibilities of the medium through her experimentation with etching, lithography and aquatint, often employing hand-colouring in the process.

Rego made her first prints, experimenting with etching, in the 1950s at the Slade School of Art, London. In the 1980s she began to focus more closely on the medium when she made one of her most coveted series, Th
e Nursery Rhymes, 1989, which immedi¬ately established her as one of the foremost graphic artists of her generation. Made up of over 30 etchings, several of these will be on show, including Hey diddle diddle; Ride a Cock-horse; The Old Woman who lived in a Shoe and Little Miss Muffet I, 1989. Working in the medium of print to mostly produce series of works, other familiar childhood tales and stories that appear in the exhibition include Peter Pan (Flying Children, 1992) and Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre, 2001 – 2002).

Rego offered up a subversive reinterpretation of these popular English nursery rhymes, folk tales, poems and novels. Familiar and seemingly innocent verses are reimagined as images about cruelty, power, sexual curiosity and desire and the haunting and disconcerting aspects of childhood. Rego also took inspiration from her own memories of personal events, from her childhood to her experiences as a woman, including female suffering and fortitude.

Via North Devon Gazette.