Paula Rego at The House of Stories in Cascais

Paula Rego didn’t want to call the space dedicated to her work - which was inaugurated in 2009 in Cascais - a museum. She called it 'The House of Stories'. She donated more than 500 of her artworks that year, and even more in the following decade, to the venue dedicated to celebrating her work. Everything she produced was telling stories. Narratives about women and not-so-beautiful tales about what is expected of them. Subjects that were - and still are - taboo. Desire, pain, depression, abortion, sexism.

In the last week of April, we guided our collectors through a tour of the space located in Cascais, near Lisbon, where they learned about the work and life of Paula Rego, one of the most celebrated Portuguese artists of all time.

Born in Lisbon in 1935, she lived between Portugal and London and made a successful career in England. In 2010, she was even made a dame of the British Empire. Before her death in June 2022, she got to be a major retrospective of her work at the Tate Britain in 2021, as well as a highlight at the Venice Biennale 2022.

The House of Stories, a testament to Paula Rego’s legacy, is housed in a unique terracotta-painted architecture. Designed by the celebrated Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, the building’s two pyramid-shaped towers and a contrasting green garden create a striking first impression.

We got to see, for example, works from the 'Abortion' series, which the artist was proud to see used to campaign for the legalization of abortion in Portugal, depict women in the aftermath of illegal abortions. We also discussed about striking works addressing the issues of women’s trafficking, female genital mutilation, infanticide, rape. Usually made in pastel rather than paint, her works combine childhood memories with her experiences as a woman, wife, and lover.

She was devoted to making the darkest and deepest of individual psychology visible, and for that, she transformed people into animals as if she were telling a fairy tale. Although, as one can imagine, her endings are not happily ever after.