Retrospective of Painter Paula Rego’s Work at Tate Britain

NICK WILLING, PAULA REGO’S SON: Well, it’s a huge honor for her. But, you know — and it’s a dream come true because she’s been knocking at the door of the Tate for almost all her adult life. But unfortunately, the art world is a world run by men for men until only recently. And so, the fact that they’ve actually eventually opened the door to her is, for her, a dream come true.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You know, Nick, you’re absolutely right and it’s important to be reminded that there are very few female artists, you know, exhibited in these major museums. And I just want to just ask you to reflect on this. Obviously, this retrospective is getting rave reviews. But here’s a line from the F.D. This retrospective proves that no artist has more powerfully subverted male painterly tradition to express the modern female experience, talking obviously about your mother, Paula Rego. Break that down for us.

WILLING: Well, in the late ’80s, she was invited by the National Gallery to be their first artist and residence there. And an artist in residence is supposed to draw inspiration from the work at the National Gallery. And she initially turned that down because she said, it’s a gallery filled with the work of men about men. And there’s nothing really for me there. But then, a week later, after thinking about that, she rang back and said, well, actually, because it’s a gallery of men by men, I want to have a go. And what she did in some of that work is shown in this exhibition here, this wonderful picture called time, past and present, in which she takes the classical, even renaissance and baroque painting and structure and symbolism and subverts it in order to reflect female experience. And that reminds us, I think, that for centuries, millennia, even, the art world has been really just seen through the looking glass of 50 percent of the population. And women were almost never reflected or shown.

AMANPOUR: I just want to, you know, take note of where you are because your background is amazing and you are obviously in your mother’s studio. And there are all these dolls and there’s — I can see easels and, you know, kind of props and things that turned up in her art.