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Lot Essay
'[Fairytales] are to do with people even though they may employ animals - they are human, my god are they human, and very often they reflect on the pressure upon men or women. Fear is part of the fairy story. Children are afraid, but then they are also relieved when it is over. I like that - I find that's very much like life' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).
Sitting peacefully, gazing up at the night sky, Paula Rego's Good Dog is a tender and serene composition that stands apart from much of the artist's oeuvre. Never before seen by the public, the work was a gift from Rego to a close friend at Christmas in 1994, marking the heartfelt conclusion to the artist's pivotal Dog Woman series. The first series to be rendered entirely in pastel, the works have an intense physicality; the artist's every stroke legible, tactile on the surface of the canvas. In Good Dog this is strikingly so, the velveteen finish of the midnight pastel, built from layer upon layer of pigment to create a swirling celestial sky. The darkness is interrupted by gleaming white impregnations of pastel to form glowing stars. Silent and still, a small flock of sheep stand in the background, flanking the figure of the young woman. Her legs tucked up beneath her, Rego's Good Dog has an exquisite face, the features almost sculptural with their play of light and dark shadows. The eyes are soulful, full of character, Rego's own character and personal experiences igniting the composition. The hands and feet appear neat and nimble, each fine finger and toe coursing with vitality.
In Good Dog and the Dog Woman series, Rego was undertaking an iterative process of catharsis, reacting to the death of her beloved husband and British artist, Victor Willing. Willing had been Rego's mainstay, her mentor and confidant and his precipitous deterioration in health prompted her to give up painting entirely for a period. Throughout the series, we see the artist coming to terms with the loss of a man who had meant so much to her. As she described: 'with this series, they meant a lot to me, the postures, because quite a lot of them were about my husband. She's sleeping on her owner's coat you see. She has an owner, which is not very feminist but it was true, it was me and my husband. They were all made in his honour really, except the first one because she's a mean one really, but this last one, she's a gentle one' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).
In Good Dog we find the sweet counterpart to Rego's Bad Dog from the series, whose cocked leg we see despoiling a silken blue throw. 'In Good Dog', Rego suggests with characteristic and mischievous glee: 'she is younger, she is the daughter of Bad Dog. She's a little bitch. A nice one you know' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011). Animals have long found a place in Rego's narrative paintings, indeed the first charcoal study for Dog Woman was undertaken as early as 1953. From the cartoon-like monkeys, bears and one-eared dogs reincarnated in her early paintings, to the anthropomorphic or personified animals dramatically recurring in her Girl and Dogs series (1986-1987), Rego used these creatures to enter an open discussion about private emotions without censorship. Jealousy, adultery, tenderness, sexuality as well as revenge all appear in her paintings, using the visual vocabulary of a child, with the acuity of an adult. In the Dog Woman series, Rego was inverting this practice, emphasising those base instincts and actions common to both animals and humans: Baying (1994), Sleeper (1994), Scavengers (1994), Grooming (1994), Waiting for Food (1994). As she recounted, the boundaries between animal and human behavior are always negotiated: 'with animals there is always one part of human nature, a dog-like one, such as devotion but dogs can also bite. They are devoted and can attack' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).
Rego has often spoken of the influence of Portuguese fairytales on her practice. The Dog Woman series grew out of this tradition, and in particular a now well-known story once recounted to the artist by a friend. The brutal tale spoke of a woman who lived alone with her pets in a big house surrounded by sand dunes. One day, driven mad by the sound of a howling wind crossing the dunes, the woman went down on all fours and devoured all of her pets. This haunting story kept returning to Rego as a powerful mental image whilst working in her studio. As Rego has averred, '[Fairytales] are to do with people even though they may employ animals - they are human, my god are they human, and very often they reflect on the pressure upon men or women. Fear is part of the fairy story. Children are afraid, but then they are also relieved when it is over. I like that - I find that's very much like life' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).
Sitting peacefully, gazing up at the night sky, Paula Rego's Good Dog is a tender and serene composition that stands apart from much of the artist's oeuvre. Never before seen by the public, the work was a gift from Rego to a close friend at Christmas in 1994, marking the heartfelt conclusion to the artist's pivotal Dog Woman series. The first series to be rendered entirely in pastel, the works have an intense physicality; the artist's every stroke legible, tactile on the surface of the canvas. In Good Dog this is strikingly so, the velveteen finish of the midnight pastel, built from layer upon layer of pigment to create a swirling celestial sky. The darkness is interrupted by gleaming white impregnations of pastel to form glowing stars. Silent and still, a small flock of sheep stand in the background, flanking the figure of the young woman. Her legs tucked up beneath her, Rego's Good Dog has an exquisite face, the features almost sculptural with their play of light and dark shadows. The eyes are soulful, full of character, Rego's own character and personal experiences igniting the composition. The hands and feet appear neat and nimble, each fine finger and toe coursing with vitality.
In Good Dog and the Dog Woman series, Rego was undertaking an iterative process of catharsis, reacting to the death of her beloved husband and British artist, Victor Willing. Willing had been Rego's mainstay, her mentor and confidant and his precipitous deterioration in health prompted her to give up painting entirely for a period. Throughout the series, we see the artist coming to terms with the loss of a man who had meant so much to her. As she described: 'with this series, they meant a lot to me, the postures, because quite a lot of them were about my husband. She's sleeping on her owner's coat you see. She has an owner, which is not very feminist but it was true, it was me and my husband. They were all made in his honour really, except the first one because she's a mean one really, but this last one, she's a gentle one' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).
In Good Dog we find the sweet counterpart to Rego's Bad Dog from the series, whose cocked leg we see despoiling a silken blue throw. 'In Good Dog', Rego suggests with characteristic and mischievous glee: 'she is younger, she is the daughter of Bad Dog. She's a little bitch. A nice one you know' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011). Animals have long found a place in Rego's narrative paintings, indeed the first charcoal study for Dog Woman was undertaken as early as 1953. From the cartoon-like monkeys, bears and one-eared dogs reincarnated in her early paintings, to the anthropomorphic or personified animals dramatically recurring in her Girl and Dogs series (1986-1987), Rego used these creatures to enter an open discussion about private emotions without censorship. Jealousy, adultery, tenderness, sexuality as well as revenge all appear in her paintings, using the visual vocabulary of a child, with the acuity of an adult. In the Dog Woman series, Rego was inverting this practice, emphasising those base instincts and actions common to both animals and humans: Baying (1994), Sleeper (1994), Scavengers (1994), Grooming (1994), Waiting for Food (1994). As she recounted, the boundaries between animal and human behavior are always negotiated: 'with animals there is always one part of human nature, a dog-like one, such as devotion but dogs can also bite. They are devoted and can attack' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).
Rego has often spoken of the influence of Portuguese fairytales on her practice. The Dog Woman series grew out of this tradition, and in particular a now well-known story once recounted to the artist by a friend. The brutal tale spoke of a woman who lived alone with her pets in a big house surrounded by sand dunes. One day, driven mad by the sound of a howling wind crossing the dunes, the woman went down on all fours and devoured all of her pets. This haunting story kept returning to Rego as a powerful mental image whilst working in her studio. As Rego has averred, '[Fairytales] are to do with people even though they may employ animals - they are human, my god are they human, and very often they reflect on the pressure upon men or women. Fear is part of the fairy story. Children are afraid, but then they are also relieved when it is over. I like that - I find that's very much like life' (P. Rego, interview with K. Arnold, 23 November 2011).