Paula Rego By: Jim Lane Mother and Daughter by Paula Rego 1997, 20"x22", eight-color screen print National Gallery of Art, Washington (Click on picture for more of (artist's) work.)

Although I try, goodness knows I try, I'm sure I don't write about female artists as often as their numbers or work would justify. But then again, I don't write about Portuguese artists as often as I should either. Okay, I've NEVER written about a Portuguese artist, much less a FEMALE Portuguese artist...mea culpa. But Paula Rego is worth writing home about. She's quite the unique individual. Try to imagine an artist whose influences are as diverse as Walt Disney and Dante's Inferno. Maybe Disney should do an animated feature on Dante. They wouldn't have to look far to fine a lead artist. Rego's work is often compared to illustration perhaps because of her Disney affections. She has a body of work covering such classics as Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Snow White, and the ostrich ballerinas from Fantasia. Her father owned Portugal's first private cinema. It was there she "cut her teeth" on such Disney fare. But let me warn you, before you go searching through the archives, don't expect anything even faintly resembling the "Disney style." Her's is an affection, not an affectation. For this, look instead to the ancient illustrations of Dante's Inferno, another of her father's favorites. Bedtime stories from The Inferno? No wonder some of her work seems a tad bit nightmarish.

The Disney connection is but a small part of her work. Rego's art is an excellent example of the difference between abstract and nonrepresentational work. Though she comes close at times, like Picasso, she never steps over the line. Though she never mentions the work of her Iberian neighbor, there are similarities between hers and Picasso's early, Pre-Cubist painting. At times there can be found the Fauvist look of Matisse as well. But also, there is a sketchy, etchy, illustrative, almost comic strip quality to some of her art. Her self-portrait with her mother (above) is an example of this style in her work. There is little doubt in looking at any of it that its artist is a woman. A female point of view permeates both the content (which is not always flattering) and attitude; and if she's nothing else, she IS a woman with an attitude. She's outspoken, very literate, opinionated, and blunt.

Paula Rego had her first commercial success in England through the Malborough Galleries with her "Dog Woman" print series. Bride (click the image above) is one of the pastels in this series which depict women in dog-like positions, scavenging for food, baying at the moon, sleeping, and grooming. She used her daughter in a borrowed silk wedding dress to pose for the work in a position much like that of a dog waiting to have her "tummy tickled." This series draws attention to the traditional, subservient roles women have played in the past, and all too often in the present.

Later, her "Maids" series, based upon Jean Genet's play in which the maids murder their mistress, was spread in limited edition prints around the world. In a typically female manner, nowhere in her biographical material could I find mention of her age or date of birth, though I think I recall seeing somewhere the year 1935. Her father, Vic, was a tremendous influence on both her life and work. His death in 1988 she recounted in her "Departures" series. Her media ranges from pen and ink washes to traditional oil on canvas. But otherwise, there's little that is traditional about her work. It wouldn't be going too far, I don't think, to call Paula Rego Portugal's most famous woman artist...okay perhaps we could even leave out the female reference. But it's never left out of her work.

Jim Lane is fifty-ish, balding, bearded, bespectacled, professorial, outgoing, knowlegable about a lot of things, expert on a very few. He grew up in the small town of Stockport, situated on the Muskingum River in Southeastern Ohio. He graduated from a un-noteworthy business college in Cincinnati, from the U.S. Air Force, and from Ohio University where he also obtained a masters degree and wracked up several hours of post-graduate work as well. For most of his professional life he's run a portrait business out of his home, specializing in sports portraits done in pencil and colored pencil.

Happily married for 30 years, Jim taught elementary and high school art for 26 years and also spent many enjoyable hours in the front of a local community college classroom. Recently he has retired from teaching in favor of painting, traveling, writing, designing web pages, and "...doing things I've never done before."

E-mail Jim at: jimlane@jimlaneart.com

Visit The Jim Lane Collection at:   http://www.jimlaneart.com

Or Jim Lane's Arty-fact Archives at:   http://www.1st.net/users/jimlane/Archive.html