Dame Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego was a Portuguese-British visual artist, widely considered the pre-eminent woman artist of the late 20th and early 21st century, known particularly for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Rego's style evolved from abstract towards representational, and she favoured pastels over oils for much of her career. Her work often reflects feminism, coloured by folk-themes from her native Portugal.
Paula Rego
Rego's studio
Portuguese flag flying at half-mast at the Museu Colecção Berardo following Rego's death.
Paula Rego 1996 nursery rhymes exhibition poster
A pastel is an art medium that consist of powdered pigment and a binder. It can exist in a variety of forms, including a stick, a square, a pebble, or a pan of color, though other forms are possible. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those used to produce some other colored visual arts media, such as oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation. The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process.
Leon Dabo, Flowers in a Green Vase, c. 1910s, pastel
Commercial oil pastels
Scenery painter in Schlosspark Charlottenburg, Berlin
A pastel frottage created by rubbing pastel on paper laid over stone