The works on view are from an important, though rarely seen series that tackles a host of themes of abuse and exploitation, including female genital mutilation and rape. Rego is especially celebrated for works that forcibly address aspects of female agency and resolve, suffering and survival, such as the Dog Women series, begun in 1994 and the Abortion series, 1998–99, which is considered to have influenced Portugal’s successful second referendum on the legalisation of abortion in 2007. Reflecting recently on these 2010 works, Rego comments that The Overseer ‘is keeping an eye on things, soothing the mother as all hands hold down her girl.’

Describing the tension between challenging subject matter and aesthetic pleasure in this series, Michael Glover has written, ‘These are narrative paintings, and the stories they tell are gruesome and chilling in the extreme, but because of the way in which they present themselves – the rough and tumble of each of these crowded scenes, animals, dolls, lumpish adults, bustling, boisterous children, masked ghouls and proto-children all crowded together – that fact is not immediately evident. We are lulled into a kind of premature delight by the way they are painted.’

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.