Victoria Miro is delighted to present a major exhibition of drawings and works on paper by Paula Rego (1935–2022). The most comprehensive exhibition of Rego’s drawings to date, Story Line shines new light on Rego’s evolving use of line in media from pen and ink to pastel, conté, charcoal and pencil, and how it was driven by her unique approach to storytelling throughout her life. The exhibition is accompanied by a new book written by the artist’s son, Nick Willing.

Paula Rego considered herself first and foremost a ‘drawrer’ (her word). From political protest to personal introspection, activism to domestic power games, subversive humour to challenging family relationships, it was through drawing that she understood herself and the world around her, discovering ways of expressing complex ideas through a single image.

The works on show vary from intimate drawings which have never been exhibited before to studies for some of Rego’s most recognisable paintings. These are accompanied by notes, letters, sketchbooks, photographs and other archival material from throughout Rego’s life – among myriad rarities is a drawing Rego made when she was nine years old of her grandmother, while the exhibition concludes with works including a drawing she made of her own granddaughter.

  • ‘When you write your story… invention comes when you do a drawing. As you are drawing something, it very often turns into something else, and you can go with it. It develops in a completely different way, it’s organic and it’s done with the hand. The hand makes it change and so on.’

    – Paula Rego, The White Review, 2011

  • Selected Works

    Paula Rego, Maenads, 1958-59
    Paula Rego, Maenads, 1958-59
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    ‘In Maenads we see Orpheus asleep as the Maenads prepare to tear him limb from limb. In the background Dionysus plays his flute. The mythical theme is sexual; Orpheus, still grieving Eurydice, had rejected the Maenads’ advances and they wanted revenge. It’s also portentous. Paula used water to spread the Indian ink in a brutal, black explosion designed to infer violence and lust.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, Swineherd, c.1969
    Paula Rego, Swineherd, c.1969
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    ‘Swineherd is an example of a drawing inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale… Paula’s version puts the girl among the swineherd’s pigs, wearing a giant spider for a shawl. In Jungian psychology the spider is a powerful symbol for both “Shadow” (the repressed parts of the self) and “Mother” as creator and captor. The web can represent entrapment but also creativity in the form of weaving.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, Unknown Title, c.1973
    Paula Rego, Unknown Title, c.1973
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    ‘There is both an air of acceptance of her situation and a hint of rebellion. This woman, who looks conspicuously like Paula, has spent so much time in the kitchen that she’s literally dressed in its pots, pans and cutlery. Although she appears resigned to wearing the homemade lingerie, she’s clearly testing the male gaze in an act of defiance…’

    – Nick Willing

     

  • Paula Rego, Girl and Dog with Nuns, 1986
    Paula Rego, Girl and Dog with Nuns, 1986
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    ‘The dog was undoubtedly chosen instinctively. Dogs embody devotion and loyalty… Paula is not exploring nursing, she’s playing with her faithfulness, testing it, prodding it, and most of all, subjugating it.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, Study for The Maids, 1986
    Paula Rego, Study for The Maids, 1986
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    ‘In Genet’s play two housemaids plot to kill their mistress. Its psychologically charged drama triggered a string of personal memories which felt very modern, very universal to Paula. She connected the power struggle and role reversal within an ordinary domestic setting to her own upbringing.’

    – Nick Willing

  • ‘Paula created her own “overt” story, of a girl and her father, and although it wasn’t directly autobiographical it was nevertheless driven by her own “covert” stories, feelings that she identified with… Setting the pictures in her childhood homes – Ericeira and Estoril – evokes the tyranny of fascist authoritarianism and its pervasive intrusion into everyday family life.’

    – Nick Willing

    • Paula Rego, Study for The Soldier's Daughter, 1987
      Paula Rego, Study for The Soldier's Daughter, 1987
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    • Paula Rego, Study for Policeman's Daughter, 1987
      Paula Rego, Study for Policeman's Daughter, 1987
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  • Paula Rego, Study for The Dance II, 1988
    Paula Rego, Study for The Dance II, 1988
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    ‘Here, above all, she was trying to express movement and, more specifically, a kind of folk dance she had grown up with. This was Vic adopting her steps, as he had done thirty years earlier when he moved to Portugal, learned to speak Portuguese fluently and embraced his new life, her life.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego: Dance Among Thorns

    On view at the Munch Museum, 24 April–2 August 2026
    → See more
  • Paula Rego, Study for Crivelli's Garden, 1990
    Paula Rego, Study for Crivelli's Garden, 1990
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    ‘Perhaps Paula’s most famous picture from her residency at the National Gallery is Crivelli’s Garden… Paula decided to make it a celebration of women, not least because women are poorly represented in the National Gallery, and chose to feature female saints… Paula invited the people who worked in the gallery to pose for her, as well as friends and family, and made lots of studies before embarking on the painting. Consistent with her method of that time, she painted exclusively from those drawings.’

    – Nick Willing
    • Paula Rego, Study for the Artist in her Studio, 1993
      Paula Rego, Study for the Artist in her Studio, 1993
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    • Paula Rego, Study for The Fitting, 1990
      Paula Rego, Study for The Fitting, 1990
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  • Paula Rego, Study for Embarkation, 1992
    Paula Rego, Study for Embarkation, 1992
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    ‘When Paula left the National Gallery, she moved into a temporary studio in Islington. Here she continued exploring memories from her past with Vic, and in particular, experiences that she had not yet properly processed. Embarkation is a good example of this.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, Study for Jenufa, 1995
    Paula Rego, Study for Jenufa, 1995
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    ‘Paula’s Study for Jenufa… and the subsequent painting tell a nuanced story. The pose was carefully considered. This is not a woman on her knees, but crouching, ready to leap. Her Jenufa is not a victim, but a survivor, with a strong body braced to face whatever the world throws at her.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, Study for Untitled (Abortion Series), 1998
    Paula Rego, Study for Untitled (Abortion Series), 1998
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    ‘She made a series featuring young girls, some in school uniforms, recovering from illegal abortions. What history has taught us, Paula said, is that this will always go on, whether we approve of it or not. To protect the lives of our daughters, sisters, mothers and aunts, we need to reach past our religious or political allegiances and grasp a compassionate public health solution.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, Don't Leave Me II, 2000
    Paula Rego, Don't Leave Me II, 2000
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    ‘What I find touching about Don’t Leave Me II is its ambiguity. Who is saying this to whom? Don’t leave me, daughter, or don’t leave me, mother?… As ever, by drawing it, Paula was trying to understand how she felt,and what this might mean for her.’

    – Nick Willing

    • Paula Rego, Waiting, 2000
      Paula Rego, Waiting, 2000
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    • Paula Rego, Jane Eyre, 2002
      Paula Rego, Jane Eyre, 2002
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  • Paula Rego, War Rabbits, 2003
    Paula Rego, War Rabbits, 2003
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    ‘“You can do anything to rabbits”, she once told me. However, these are not real rabbits; they’re masks and dolls which also echo human forms, paradoxically flung into the heat of battle, embodying a callous dialectic of violence which normalises the slaughter of those we value most.’

    – Nick Willing

  • Paula Rego, She Doesn't Want It, 2007
    Paula Rego, She Doesn't Want It, 2007
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    ‘In 2007, drawing took over her painting. She made a series of large works, not with pastel, but with conté and graphite, giving the impression that these were pages pulled from a giant sketchbook… Paula made a series of these large drawings which were unveiled in New York in 2008… The works included She Doesn’t Want It, which examines the casual brutality of coerced sex work.’

    – Nick Willing

    • Paula Rego, Luisa Receives the Letter, 2015
      Paula Rego, Luisa Receives the Letter, 2015
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    • Paula Rego, Princess, 2015
      Paula Rego, Princess, 2015
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  • ‘The earliest drawing included is one that Paula made of her grandmother when she was nine years old. We end with a drawing she made as a grandmother of her granddaughter when she was eighty years old. Princess was a study for the epic painting The Eagle Princess… There is a certain symmetry in this cycle of life: Paula returning to a simplicity of line which delivers its story in the clearest, most unaffected way.’

    – Nick Willing

  • New publication

    Marking the largest exhibition of Paula Rego's drawings to date, this new publication written by the artist’s son, Nick Willing,...

    Marking the largest exhibition of Paula Rego's drawings to date, this new publication written by the artist’s son, Nick Willing, tells the story of Rego’s extraordinary life through an illuminating selection of drawings from across her career. The featured works offer unique insight into where she was, both artistically and biographically, and how as a ‘drawrer’ (her own word) Rego came to understand herself and the world around her – the immediate world of domestic life and family relationships, and the worlds of art and politics, which she responded to with characteristic humour, honesty and defiance.

    These vary from intimate drawings to studies for some of Rego’s most recognisable paintings. They are accompanied by photographs and other rarely-seen archival material to build a uniquely personal account of what drove and sustained her, what she was challenged by and what she overcame to become one of our most beloved and important artists.

    ‘I have found it deeply moving to choose these drawings and reflect on their secrets and stories. Perhaps because I’m still grieving, or because I love them all so much, or because they take me back through my life, too, and a relationship with a complicated and wonderful mother. Or perhaps because, as a child, I felt most close to her, and she to me, when we drew together.’

    – Nick Willing
     
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