The props have a life on their own,” whispers Lila Nunes, as we pick our way through a north London studio full of bloated wooden dolls and balding mermaid puppets, a papier-mâché eagle and a giant stuffed octopus. As the former au pair, long-time assistant and muse to the artist Paula Rego, Lila has an unmatched insight into this bewitching and uncanny world of paint and canvas. This is a consummate story factory, fuelled by almost every kind of narrative fodder, from Portuguese folklore to political satire and childhood memory.
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This September, yet more of Paula Rego’s unfathomably imaginative realm is unveiled as Marlborough Fine Art presents Paula Rego: From Mind to Hand. Drawings from 1980 to 2001. Comprising over 60 of Rego’s seminal preparatory works on paper, the show cements the artist’s unwavering commitment to drawing, and testifies to her extraordinary inventiveness. Over mint tea, Vogue sat down with Rego to discuss how the Lisbon-born, Slade-trained, 83-year-old painter found her way into the art history books; and how “play is the most important thing of all”.
Since buying our house in London in 1963 I’ve had many studios. I worked from an upstairs room to start with and then a shed at the bottom of the garden. We'd spend every summer in Ericeira [in Portugal] where I worked in a large barn my grandfather had once used to make the wine. Once a barn owl flew in like the angel of death and a rat dropped from the rafters and splattered on the floor. I loved that studio. When we moved house, in London, I rented various places. I had a Space studio in Berry Street which had no windows and then one in Islington. The studio I have now I bought in 1993 from my stretcher-makers. The moment I walked in here I said, ‘This is it’, and I went straight to the bank. It’s the place I feel best in. It is where I belong.
I used to work six days a week but now I work five. Lila picks me up from home and we go to the studio by car. And then we put our work clothes on and work till lunch time. Then, I have a siesta and then work till about six. We used to have a glass of champagne together before heading home but now I save it till dinner time.
Well, she sits for me and she sometimes reads stories to me – Portuguese traditional tales – and we think of something to do. Or sometimes I know what I want to do. She adopts poses that are right... she understands what I’m trying to do, she gets it. I might tweak the pose but she’s very good!
Well, Victor Willing was a formative influence, and how! For instance, I’d never heard of collage till he suggested it but I loved doing them. I liked the cutting. Cutting fingers off and heads. I also looked at the work of many artists – Goya, Ribera, Ensor… I like Ensor very much - he paints the grotesque and the works are beautiful. You can learn a lot from these marvellous artists.
At college we painted from the model every day, everyone did - Michael Andrews, Bacon, Freud – I was just one of them. But Lowry was my tutor and one day I went to him and he said, "I couldn’t do that!", which made me very happy.
I think I went to see Tim because he’d championed an artist I admired. He said, ‘I can’t believe you are still doing this sort of work, no one does this anymore.’ He told me to get three pots of paint in three colours and then paint a wide stripe left to right, then another right to left and so on and that would make a painting. I was so disappointed I cried, but then I thought he probably knew what he was talking about so I gave it a try – but it didn’t make any sense to me. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to; I didn’t know how. Years later I met him at a party and he said, ‘I knew Paula Rego before she was Paula Rego’.
The same stories I heard as a child. Portuguese stories. Something that grabs me, for some reason I can identify with. I’m usually putting a woman in dire straits and seeing how she gets out of them. If she does. Or if she gets her revenge.
I’m very fond of those drawings I did of Lila which were titled ‘Contempt’ and ‘Disgust’ and so on. It’s the same thing as painting really, only drawing hasn’t got so much colour.
Drawing from life is much more difficult although it can come naturally as well. I think everybody should do it, even if they are doing conceptual art. You discover all sorts of things by drawing. It’s hard. It tests you. It’s that absolute concentration that it takes. It trains you to look. You have to really see. That rigour is important however you make your work.
I’m not really anything to do with feminist thinking although it was very important for me at one time. I read all those Simone de Beauvoir books and they had a big effect on me. Freed me. I think women are still badly treated and I don’t like to see them suffer. It’s very unfair. Women should be able to have safe abortions and grow up without being mutilated or raped or beaten up. I don’t know if that’s feminist thinking or simply how I want to live.
There is no ‘correct’ practice; there is what you like. In the way I like Darger and all those outsider artists rather than traditional people like Ribera. If you are trying to be correct and do proper ‘Art’ or what you think is proper art you are constrained. You don’t play… and playing is the most important thing of all.
The cycle of the virgin Mary which I did for the chapel in the presidential palace in Lisbon. That was very important. I loved doing them most of all.
By going on. The biggest challenge was selling work for the first 50 years, but I carried on... because I didn’t know what else to do. I could never type or anything. No good at geography. There was one time a French art dealer came to my barn in Portugal. He’d heard about me somehow and he liked my work. He asked me to bring him some paintings. I thought, ‘This is it’. So, Vic and I strapped my paintings to the top of his Floride and we drove all the way to Paris and left them at this man’s gallery. Two weeks later I got a letter in London which said: ‘Monsieur la Cloche a en-réfléchi’... he’d had second thoughts. Terrible. Vic had to drive back and pick them up again. It was very disappointing.
They are very hidden, very hard to find. I keep searching but it’s not easy to see them you see because they are full of stuff. Hard to uncover.
I wouldn’t have done acting or singing. My father said I had a terrible voice. I can’t do sooth-saying. Maybe I would have done embroidery.
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Paula Rego: From Mind to hand, Drawings from 1980 to 2001, 12 September – 27 October, Marlborough Fine Art, London
