The Betrothal (1999)
By Paula Rego
After 'Marriage a la Mode' by Hogarth
Rego made this work for the National Gallery's group exhibition Encounters, eight years after her residency. She was asked to produce a piece that responded to a work in the gallery's collection. Rego chose British artist William Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode c.1743. Hogarth's cycle of paintings is a morality tale of arranged marriage, betrayal and death. Rego reworks Hogarth's story, updates it and set it in Portugal. In her first panel, two mothers arrange their children's marriage. In the second, the girl learns to perform 'womanhood' from her future mother-in-law. Finally, the now grown-up husband returns destitute from Brazil, in need of his betrayed wife's support.
[Tate Britain]
Paula Rego
(July – October 2021)
The UK's largest and most comprehensive retrospective of Paula Rego’s work to date.
Since the 1950s, Paula Rego has played a key role in redefining figurative art in the UK and internationally. An uncompromising artist of extraordinary imaginative power, she has revolutionised the way in which women are represented.
This exhibition tells the story of this artist’s extraordinary life, highlighting the personal nature of much of her work and the socio-political context in which it is rooted. It also reveals the artist’s broad range of references, from comic strips to history painting.
It features over 100 works, including collage, paintings, large-scale pastels, ink and pencil drawings and etchings. These include early works from the 1950s in which Rego first explored personal as well as social struggle, her large pastels of single figures from the acclaimed Dog Women and Abortion series and her richly layered, staged scenes from the 2000-10s.
This is a unique opportunity to survey, in the city that Rego has lived in and called home for most of her life, the full range of her work.
[Tate Britain]
Taken in Tate Britain
The Betrothal (1999)
By Paula Rego
After 'Marriage a la Mode' by Hogarth
Rego made this work for the National Gallery's group exhibition Encounters, eight years after her residency. She was asked to produce a piece that responded to a work in the gallery's collection. Rego chose British artist William Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode c.1743. Hogarth's cycle of paintings is a morality tale of arranged marriage, betrayal and death. Rego reworks Hogarth's story, updates it and set it in Portugal. In her first panel, two mothers arrange their children's marriage. In the second, the girl learns to perform 'womanhood' from her future mother-in-law. Finally, the now grown-up husband returns destitute from Brazil, in need of his betrayed wife's support.
[Tate Britain]
Paula Rego
(July – October 2021)
The UK's largest and most comprehensive retrospective of Paula Rego’s work to date.
Since the 1950s, Paula Rego has played a key role in redefining figurative art in the UK and internationally. An uncompromising artist of extraordinary imaginative power, she has revolutionised the way in which women are represented.
This exhibition tells the story of this artist’s extraordinary life, highlighting the personal nature of much of her work and the socio-political context in which it is rooted. It also reveals the artist’s broad range of references, from comic strips to history painting.
It features over 100 works, including collage, paintings, large-scale pastels, ink and pencil drawings and etchings. These include early works from the 1950s in which Rego first explored personal as well as social struggle, her large pastels of single figures from the acclaimed Dog Women and Abortion series and her richly layered, staged scenes from the 2000-10s.
This is a unique opportunity to survey, in the city that Rego has lived in and called home for most of her life, the full range of her work.
[Tate Britain]
Taken in Tate Britain