Paula Rego — The Complete Graphic Work

The first monograph to deal exclusively with Rego's graphic work, sumptuously produced with reproductions in color and tritone. Many of the greatest artists since Durer and Rembrandt have used the print medium to explore some of their most important ideas. Paula Rego is in this tradition, giving full rein to her imagination in both etching and lithography, and using the media with exuberance to create work that is as disturbing, erotic, and powerful as her paintings. This monograph discusses and illustrates all Rego's prints, including unpublished workover 200 etchings and lithographs spanning half a century from 1954 to 2003. Many of her prints are based on themes; as she says, one image triggers the idea for the next. Among these are Rego's Nursery Rhymes, which reveal a darkly humorous take on the difficulties of childhood and provide a rich seam for her precocious girls and individually characterized animals. The narrative layers and emotional nuances of her work are vividly shown in her Peter Pan series of 1992, and also in Pendle Witches, for which she collaborated closely with the poet and writer Blake Morrison, who in turn was inspired by her series The Children's Crusade. The book concludes with her most recent portfolio of lithographs, based more or less loosely on Jane Eyre. 491 illustrations in color and tritone.