This Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition (on view at Lightbox Gallery, 1 February–8 June 2025) showcases the artist’s printmaking practice, taking a deep look into the literary influences that have inspired Rego’s work.
From menacing oversized creatures etched into life from children’s nursery rhymes such as Little Miss Muffet and Three Blind Mice, to the almost hallucinatory depictions of Neverland from Peter Pan and the tumultuous relationships based on power read about in Jane Eyre, Rego's work tells stories that combine fantasy and imagination, innocence and cruelty, in order to explore the complexities of life and the experience of women in particular, in all its strangeness and mystery.
Image: Paula Rego, Little Miss Muffet II, 1989
Hand coloured etching and aquatint
© Ostrich Arts Ltd | Paula Rego Estate, courtesy Ostrich Arts Ltd and Cristea Roberts Gallery
