Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories

Paula Rego grows up in a stifling, male-dominated Portugal where women were encouraged to do absolutely nothing. She begins drawing at the age of four and uses her pictures to act out fantasies she cannot enact in real life. Her father nurtures her talent by introducing her to great storytellers such as Dante, Shakespeare, Verdi, and Disney, laying the groundwork for her imaginative approach to art.

As a teenager in London, Rego is a foreigner in a male-dominated, competitive art world. She dislikes the Slade School's abstract, academic method and hides at the back of class to paint her own pictures. It is there that she meets Victor Willing, a rising painter who would become central to her life.

Rego becomes pregnant several times while still young and fears Victor would abandon her, forcing her to consider a life of disgrace back in Portugal. She seeks a back-street abortion, an experience that profoundly shapes her psyche. The episode informs recurring themes of fear, survival, and female agency in her later work.

In the 1990s, Rego's series of back-street abortion pictures emerges in the context of Portugal's abortion debate. She is outraged by the hypocrisy of women and the social treatment of abortion, compelled to depict these experiences in powerful, unsettling imagery. The works help galvanize public sentiment before Portugal's second referendum on abortion.

After becoming pregnant again at 19, Rego decides to keep the baby despite Victor's plan to return to his wife. They move to Portugal, where Willing is invited to live in Paula's grandparents' house in Ericeira. The couple marries and have two more children, and Rego's artistic vitality blossoms during this period.

Willing's continued relationships with other women fill Rego with dread, prompting her to respond in kind. The emotional strain threads through her art, fueling recurring concerns of fear, vulnerability and desire. This turbulent dynamic remains a through-line in her work for years.

Rego recalls lifelong depression, a constant undercurrent in her life. After her father dies in 1966, Willing takes over the electronics factory, mortgaging the family home to invest. The business collapses in a brutal bankruptcy, leaving the family devastated and forced to move to London penniless.

Settling in London, Rego battles mounting depression while Victor's illness, multiple sclerosis, worsens their circumstances. She keeps painting every day, even as the market ignores her, demonstrating discipline and stubborn resilience. The difficult years set the stage for a dramatic artistic revival.

Around 1980, Rego's work undergoes a personal revolution, turning intimate experiences with Victor, family, and lovers into bold, powerful images. Critics and dealers begin to take notice, revitalizing her career. This period marks a turning point that redefines her place in contemporary art.

In 1986 Rego signs with Marlborough Fine Art, boosting her international profile. Willing dies in 1988, and shortly after she achieves a major retrospective at London's Serpentine Gallery, cementing her status as a leading female artist. The combination of personal loss and public recognition deepens the emotional charge of her work.

Later works include the Dog Woman series and revisiting The Crime of Father Amaro, as Rego continues to process her past and its impact on her art. Feminist writers such as Germaine Greer and Marina Warner hail her as a pioneer who reshaped the role of women artists. The films' retrospective framing underscores her enduring influence.

In the film, Nick Willing asks what Rego is most proud of after a lifetime of achievement, a question that becomes the story's emotional pivot. Her answer offers a personal, revealing closure to this intimate portrait. The movie itself stands as a testament to her legacy and the power of art to illuminate a life.