Anthony Rudolf's Rochester as seen by Paula Rego

Another exhibition of Paula Rego's works is currently in London. But this one is quite special:

The Anthony Rudolf Collection: Works Gifted to Him by Paula Rego

11 June - 5 September

Ben Uri Museum, London, UK

Ben Uri is honoured to have been selected to present a most revealing and interesting exhibition telling the story of Paula Rego and Anthony Rudolf’s 26-year relationship. Anthony was her close companion and principal male model from 1996 until the end of her life in 2022. The story is beautifully illustrated through the art given by Paula to Anthony during this quarter of a century, juxtaposed with engaging family photographs.

This show will exhibit over 40 works, the vast majority never seen in public before, and tells a different variant of well-known stories in art history about the artist, the muse, the model, and the relationships accruing.

The Article gives further information: 

Paula and Anthony had an extraordinary relationship, illuminated by the exhibition of his collection at the Ben Uri Museum that closes on 5 September. He calls it “a collaboration”, in which she cast him as a character in many different stories. “It is a revealing fact,” he writes, “that her best likenesses of me were when I was playing a role, not when she was making a straight portrait.” In this exhibition Rudolf appears as Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre, as Bluebeard, as a priest from a famous Portuguese novel, The Crime of Father Amaro, and as Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s Metamorphosis. (David Herman)

Indeed: