I have recently re-visited the museum Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, one of the very few galleries dedicated to a living artist. Since the Portuguese born painter didn't like the idea of a museum, it has been named House of the Stories.
I had been invited to the vernissage of a retrospective exhibition of the British artist and art critique Victor Willing (1928-1988), husband of Paula Rego, who played a prominent role at the Slade School of Fine Art (London).
As I had been told that Paula Rego would be there in person and I had never seen any work by Victor Willing, I did not want to miss the opportunity of being face to face with her, get familiar with Willing's work, either.
Willing's first Portuguese show gathers together about eighty paintings and drawings, some of them deposited by Rego at Casa das Historias collections and others loaned by various entities (Tate Modern, Pallant House Gallery, Southbank Centre, etc.).
For Willing, painting was a matter of objects endowed with palpable presence, and of color and light, embedded in the matrix of space and a moment in time, suspended between past and future. Quite different from Paula Rego, whose work fuses autobiographical passages and an attentive reading of the paradoxes of contemporaneity with timeless narratives. The works from Paula Rego's personal collection were shown in a different room.
On the way back home, I felt some happiness for having seen pieces that are usually away from the public eye.
As I had been told that Paula Rego would be there in person and I had never seen any work by Victor Willing, I did not want to miss the opportunity of being face to face with her, get familiar with Willing's work, either.
Willing's first Portuguese show gathers together about eighty paintings and drawings, some of them deposited by Rego at Casa das Historias collections and others loaned by various entities (Tate Modern, Pallant House Gallery, Southbank Centre, etc.).
For Willing, painting was a matter of objects endowed with palpable presence, and of color and light, embedded in the matrix of space and a moment in time, suspended between past and future. Quite different from Paula Rego, whose work fuses autobiographical passages and an attentive reading of the paradoxes of contemporaneity with timeless narratives. The works from Paula Rego's personal collection were shown in a different room.
On the way back home, I felt some happiness for having seen pieces that are usually away from the public eye.
You've shared some amazing art.
ReplyDeleteWow, Magnifico! Love the Exhibit place -- casa de historias -- yes, many stories to be found in that art work! my favorite was one entitled Spanish woman... a story behind that image, indeed! :)
ReplyDeletea pleasure to also see Portuguese people...
thank you, Belita!!
love that blue dress shoes combo!
ReplyDeleteHow fab for you! I especially love the 'girl in the lounging chair'. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great opportunity! Love the art.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great day out for you and an interesting art exibition. The photographer can always learn from looking at the way the artist has constructed the painting and the use of colours amd that persons perpective of the subject.
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