Works on view in the gallery’s first presentation since announcing its representation of the artist focus on quintessential themes in Rego’s art. Dame with Goat’s Foot 1, (Undressing the Divine Lady), 2011–12, belongs to an important body of work that takes inspiration from and is a visual retelling of A Dama Pé de Cabra, a nineteenth-century story by the Portuguese novelist and historian Alexandre Herculano. In Herculano’s tale, the goat-footed protagonist is the Devil in disguise, determined to seduce and destroy the man who will become her husband. Rego, liberating the character from the male fantasy of a devilishly seductive villain, reimagines the story as part of a broader narrative about the dynamics of relationships – mindful that tragedy translates in ancient Greek as ‘goat-song’.

Writing about the series, the American art critic and historian Donald Kuspit notes, ‘In Rego’s Undressing the Goat-Feet Lady she sits enthroned above Diogo. He sits at her feet, his right hand pointing to her lap – her genital area – his left hand holding her left goat foot, inviting us to compare human hand and goat foot, suggesting their bizarre affinity. He stares at us with melancholy desperation, suggesting his unhappiness at discovering that his wife is a devil, and drawing us into the picture as though we also are devil-worshippers. Her right hand holds an upright guitar, suggestive of her shapely body, and, more to the point, her affinity with the ancient sirens whose song drove men mad, as Homer tells us in Odysseus.’

Born in 1935 in Lisbon, Portugal, Dame Paula Rego RA studied at The Slade School of Fine Art from 1952 to 1956. She lives and works in London. Next year, the largest and most comprehensive retrospective of Rego’s work to date will take place at Tate Britain (16 June–24 October 2021). Current 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 opened at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin in September 2020 (18 September 2020–3 January 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 Gallery, London, UK and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK. Paula Rego will have her first solo exhibition at Victoria Miro during the latter part of 2021.