The Hateful Aunt and her Son, 2017, is one of a number of works inspired by Bastardia, a 2005 story by the celebrated Portuguese novelist, playwright and poet Hélia Correia. In Correia’s fateful tale, a boy who believes his father is the sea makes a journey to the ocean, which he has never seen before, experiencing a number of encounters and hardships along the way.

One of themes of the story is the powerlessness of children in the face of adults. This work depicts the boy’s aunt and her son who, living by the sea, offered to take him to live with them yet behaved with increasing cruelty towards him. The composition – with adults regally holding court above a group of children and dolls – accentuates the narrative’s dynamics of power.

About the artist

Born in 1935 in Lisbon, Portugal, Dame Paula Rego RA lives and works in London. The largest and most comprehensive retrospective of Rego’s work to date takes place at Tate Britain (7 July–24 October 2021). Additional current solo institutional exhibitions include Museum De Reede, Antwerp, Belgium (8 July–4 October 2021).

Recent major solo exhibitions include Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, curated by Catherine Lampert, which travelled from MK Gallery, Milton Keynes to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh in 2019–2020 and was on view at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin from September 2020–May 2021. Her work is in the collections of major museums including the British Museum, London, UK; National Gallery, London, UK; National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; Tate, UK and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK.