Paula Rego (British, b. 1935)

British painter and printmaker of Portuguese birth. She trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, from 1952 to 1956. There she met the English painter Victor Willing (1928-88), whom she married and with whom she lived in Portugal from 1957 to 1963; they continued to divide their time between Portugal and England until 1975. She first won acclaim in Portugal with semi-abstract paintings that sometimes included collage elements culled from her own drawings. Their satiric wit and verve of line, sometimes applied to violent or political subjects such as Salazar Vomiting the Homeland (1960; Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian), revealed gifts for story-telling that had been awakened in her as a child by folk-tales related by a great-aunt. Her diverse influences included Dubuffet, Picasso, Walt Disney, Gilray and magazine illustrations by turn-of-the-century caricaturists and her work is increasingly sought-after.