Paula Rego: The Forgotten

The Forgotten is the first solo exhibition by Paula Rego at Victoria Miro London and follows soon after her sellout exhibition at Tate Britain. It brings together significant individual works and important series, many rarely shown, drawn principally from the past 20 years.

Celebrated as a peerless storyteller, Paula Rego has often brought immense psychological insight and imaginative power to the stories that we try to suppress or tell ourselves only in private. Testament to a career spent exploring these hidden narratives and their associated stigmas, The Forgotten encircles themes and subjects that are often masked or concealed – out of politeness or embarrassment – such as mental illness and old age.

Particularly poignant and personal series include one of large-scale pastels focussing on Depression from 2007 that she hid for 10 years, and self-portraits which were completed in 2017, soon after the artist fell and badly injured her face. They indicate just how closely the artist is able to represent the full spectrum of female emotional life.