The artist’s studio often takes on a mythic quality. It acts as a portrait of its owner and a portal to an otherwise inaccessible world. Visitors are often filled with the romantic notion that by witnessing the material objects that led to an artwork’s conception, one might better understand its magic. Plenty of artists avoid such exposure in life, and it is only in death that the public begins to make pilgrimages to places that have been preserved exactly as their resident left them. These spaces often become museums – but they can also become mausoleums.
Such a fate is something that has troubled Paula Rego’s son, Nick Willing, since her death in 2022. He now manages her estate alongside a career as a filmmaker, which includes a documentary about his mother. When we meet in north London on an unseasonably warm day, he first brings me to a mews house that has become an archive for her decades of work.
I am offered coffee in a mug adorned with pigs (‘Paula’s favourite animal’), before we head into the adjoining studio, a vast commercial building illuminated by a series of massive skylights and filled with the props, costumes, antiques, bric-à-brac and art supplies that Rego used throughout her career. Part of the studio has been cleared so that loans for exhibitions might be organised and packed – the demand for her pieces is at an all-time international high.
‘Her studio was always a private playroom where she could slay her dragons,’ says Willing. ‘She was fearless in her pictures. In here she had the courage of a lion, whereas in her private life she would have a hard time confronting people with the truth of how she really felt. She was actually quite timid in many ways.’
Anyone familiar with her work will find this rather astounding. Her ability to deftly portray powerful yet complex figures, even in states of duress, has led her to be celebrated as one of the greatest artists of our age. She was someone who relished the fantastical, conceiving entire worlds that contended with the various psychological traumas of human (particularly women’s) existence, and the darker corners of folk histories and childlike imagination.
‘I don’t know what to do with the studio, to be honest,’ Willing laments. ‘I worry about showing it too much, because people react by thinking that it is macabre or grotesque. It paints Paula in a certain light, which wasn’t who she was.’
He is particularly concerned with the life-sized puppets that Rego used later in life. These strange dolls were used in tableaux that soon included real models too, further invoking the uncanny disquiet that Rego was known for. They sit slumped on sofas or else piled in rows. There is even one in the artist’s own likeness, frowning with her arms folded.
Willing explains that using the puppets as a device represent only one part of her constantly shifting methodology. ‘She changed her practice all the time. She didn’t like the term “process” – in fact, she referred to it as a killer. She thought that as an artist you had to constantly discover and invent. As soon as you had a way of doing something you could end up leaning on it, instead of challenging yourself.’
If her subjects continually shifted, her materials were more fixed. Her love of oil pastels and etching long put her at odds with the fashions of the day, but she was steadfast in understanding their singular intimacy and power. It is clear that Rego also harnessed the potency of the objects that surrounded her. While Willing gestures to a heavily stacked rack of clothing, he picks out not only her wedding outfit, but ostentations vintage items sent by the trunk-load from a collector in New York. The artist also rented items from London’s famed Angels Costumes store if a particular period piece was required, and plucked textiles from charity shops and junk sales.
As we tour the space, Willing signals the significance of almost every item housed there. We are surrounded by boxes of pencils and pastels, personal mementos and deceptively quotidian articles. While examining a plan chest crowded with chintzy ceramics and holiday souvenirs, Willing hands me a natural sponge. ‘This is the angel’s sponge,’ he says, and seeing my quizzical expression, explains he is referencing Rego’s famed 1998 work Angel, where a woman in a golden skirt brandishes a sword in one hand and a piece of porifera in the other. ‘This is the piece she used. What am I supposed to do? I can’t just get rid of it!’ he laughs, only slightly despairingly.
The vestiges of her own work are not the only things that have found a home here. Nestled among the assemblages are a sculptural bull and giant octopus, which are in fact creations by fellow artist, friend and Royal Academician Cathie Pilkington. Hung from the rafters is a trio of bald, winged mermaids made by her granddaughter Carmen, as well as a rather menacing eagle holding a baby in its clutches. This piece is the creation of Lila Nunes, Rego’s long-time assistant and model. ‘She was as much a part of this space as Paula,’ says Willing. ‘She was a very important part of her life, and her process, working on and off with her since the 1980s. She stood in for Paula in pictures, and made pieces that have her own look. They had a deep connection and understanding.’
The fact that Rego surrounded herself with so many things made by her loved ones, as well as personal mementos, demonstrates the closeness she felt to them in life and art. Yet Willing notes that the child of any great artist will always be conscious that they come second to the work. He spent much of his childhood in Portugal with his grandparents, but felt closest to his mother when they were playing drawing games. ‘We used to do comics together, and take turns in seeing who does the rudest drawing, the evilest drawing, or the funniest drawing,’ he says. ‘She always said to me: “Drawing is your way of understanding the world and yourself. It is a part of you.”’
Despite some geographical distance (Willing went on to live in California), the pair remained close, and Willing saw how much Rego adored her adoptive home, where she had first moved as a teenage art student. Despite having a studio in rural Ericeira, it was London that remained her creative epicentre. ‘She didn’t like to work in Portugal as much,’ he explains, ‘because there were too many ghosts from childhood. They crowded her head with fear and doubt. Here in London, she was able to dissect her memories and her life.’
‘Paula Rego: Story Line’, a book accompanying a recent exhibition of the same name, is written by Nick Willing and published by Victoria Miro. For more information, visit victoria-miro.com
‘Paula Rego: Dance Among Thorns’ runs at the Munch Museum in Oslo until 2 August. For more information, visit munch.no.en
