1. Paula Rego, The Battle of Alcácer Quiver, 1966, Wool, silk, cotton, various textiles and linen, 250 x 650 cm, © Paula Rego, All rights reserved 2024 / Bridgeman images. Coll. Câmara Municipal de Cascais / Fundação D.Luís I / Case was Histórias Paula Rego. Max Ehrengruber and Jonas Schaffter
A universe of power and subversion
The Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego (1935–2022) ranks among the foremost figurative painters of recent decades. The Kunstmuseum Basel mounts her first exhibition in Switzerland, showcasing key works from the oeuvre she built in over half a century.
The fabulous world of Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego enthralled us with a frenzy of images, replete with cryptic humour and drama. Rego’s oeuvre commands enormous power, above all where the fates of women are at stake. Figures, who in Walt Disney’s world represent perfect princesses or otherworldly witches, are in Rego’s hands depicted as perfectly natural women.
One thing never featuring in her works, however, is the happy end. Throughout the decades, Rego has crafted complex, highly charged scenes of nightmarish proportions, revealing profound insights into human relations, into the dynamics of social, political and sexual power.
This comprehensive, special exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel is the first ever presentation of her oeuvre in this country. Her cosmos of paintings, mannequin-like objects and graphic works is on display in a series of thematically arranged rooms.
Paula Rego: a life defines by defiance and art
2. Paula Rego in her studio, London, 2009. Photo Credit : Shutterstock
Born in Lisbon in 1935, Paula Rego’s artistic trajectory was deeply shaped by both personal and political upheavals. Her father, an electrical engineer and staunch anti-fascist, fostered a spirit of defiance that would later manifest in her work. Despite her mother’s indifference to her artistic ambitions, Rego began drawing at an early age, influenced by Portuguese folklore and religious iconography. Her Catholic upbringing, though fraught with guilt and ambiguity, informed the moral complexity of her visual narratives.
Educated at Saint Julian’s School in Lisbon, she later moved to the United Kingdom to attend the Slade School of Fine Art. Unlike many of her contemporaries, who gravitated towards abstraction, Rego remained committed to figuration.
Her early works, exhibited with The London Group in the 1960s, bore traces of both Surrealism and the politically charged aesthetics of European narrative painting. By the 1980s, her reputation soared with solo exhibitions in London and Lisbon, culminating in a major retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery in 1988.
Her tenure as the first Associate Artist at the National Gallery in 1990 further cemented her status, leading to groundbreaking series that reinterpreted classical and literary themes through a feminist and deeply personal lens.
Throughout her career, Rego's work defied easy categorisation. Her 1995 pastel "Swallows the Poisoned Apple" is emblematic of her subversive approach—Snow White, rather than being the passive victim of fairy-tale, is portrayed in the throes of existential agony, confronting the inexorable passage of time. Such reinterpretations, blending folklore with psychological realism, define Rego’s practice, positioning her as a pivotal figure in contemporary figurative art.
The exhibition's curatorial approach
3. Paula Rego, Possession I, 2004, Pastel on paper on aluminium, 150 x 100 cm, © Paula Rego, All rights reserved 2024 / Bridgeman images. Coll. Fundação de Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal. Donation by Banco BPI, Grupo Cerealis, Grupo Sonae, Grupo Têxtil Manuel Gonçalves, Grupo Unicer, João Vasco Marques Pinto and Sogrape Vinhos, SA, 2005
The Kunstmuseum Basel's exhibition, Power Games, is structured around thematic rooms that navigate the core tensions in Rego’s oeuvre: self-representation, familial dynamics, political violence, gender struggles, and the subconscious. This curatorial framework underscores Rego’s ability to dissect power structures, whether domestic, sociopolitical, or psychological through an aesthetic that oscillates between realism and allegory.
The exhibition opens with a rare collection of self-portraits, a genre Rego seldom explored directly. Unlike conventional self-representations, these works function as fragmented puzzles—she appears in masculine postures, hidden within mirrors, or abstracted into swirling, chaotic forms. This refusal to present a singular, fixed identity aligns with feminist critiques of selfhood, recalling scholars like Griselda Pollock, who argue that female artists must navigate a visual culture steeped in male-dominated perspectives.
The exploration of family dynamics takes center stage in the next section, an ever-present theme in Rego’s work. Influenced by her childhood separation from her parents and the traditional roles imposed upon women, her paintings such as "The Family" and "The Dance" reveal the psychological tensions underlying domestic relationships. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory, particularly Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject, Rego portrays the family as both a site of intimacy and latent aggression.
Political trauma seeps into Rego’s canvases, particularly in her engagement with Portugal’s dictatorial past. The Kunstmuseum curators astutely highlight her treatment of state violence, weaving together historical narratives of Salazar’s regime with broader colonial legacies. A monumental tapestry, created in the 1960s, serves as a chilling testament to Portugal’s imperial ambitions and their eventual downfall. The interweaving of past and present echoes the work of postcolonial theorists like Homi Bhabha, who emphasize how historical memory is constantly reconstructed in the present.
Rego’s interrogation of gendered power struggles unfolds in a section dedicated to eroticism, betrayal, and dominance. Here, the line between human and animal blurs, figures adopt hybrid forms, reflecting the primal forces at play in intimate relationships. These works resonate with feminist art historians like Linda Nochlin, who have long critiqued the male gaze in Western art, highlighting Rego’s ability to reclaim the female subject as active rather than passive.
Literary influences permeate the exhibition, with a dedicated space for her reinterpretations of fairy tales. Unlike the sanitized Disney versions, Rego’s heroines are burdened with the weight of real-world struggles. This subversion extends to her later works, where childhood narratives morph into psychological battlegrounds, influenced by Carl Jung’s theories on the collective unconscious.
The exhibition culminates in Rego’s most politically charged works, addressing abortion rights and war. Her pastel series on illegal abortions, produced in response to Portugal’s restrictive laws, exemplifies art as activism. The visceral intensity of these images, depicting women in states of pain and defiance, played a pivotal role in shifting public discourse—an example of how art can wield tangible political influence.
Finally, the notion of resistance is encapsulated in "Angel", one of Rego’s most celebrated pieces. Unlike conventional representations of angelic purity, her figure exudes both ferocity and grace, embodying the dual forces of protection and vengeance. This final section underscores the overarching theme of the exhibition: the persistent struggle—be it personal, political, or artistic—that defines Rego’s legacy.
A necessary reckoning with power
The Kunstmuseum Basel’s exhibition is not merely a retrospective; it is a powerful indictment of the structures that shape human existence. By foregrounding Rego’s lifelong engagement with themes of power and resistance, the curators craft a compelling narrative that resonates far beyond the gallery walls. In an era where issues of gender, political repression, and historical memory remain urgent, Rego’s work demands renewed attention. This exhibition is a crucial reminder that art, at its most potent, does not merely depict reality—it challenges it.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Kunstmuseum Basel
Date: 28.9.2024 - 2.2.2025
Curator: Eva Reifert
Ticket: Available on the website of the Kunstmuseum Basel OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Kunstmuseum Basel
Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban-Graben 8
CH-4010 Basel
Phone: +41 61 206 62 62
Fax: +41 61 206 62 52
Mail: info@kunstmuseumbasel.ch
© Lucas GASGAR / Lucas Art Talks 2025