Paula Rego

Summary

This etching is one of a series of powerful works the artist made on the subject of abortion. The prints were produced in an edition of seventeen; Tate owns one of two sets of artist’s copies of seven of them. In addition to the etchings, Rego made a number of drawings and paintings, including the large scale Triptych, 1998 (Marlborough Fine Art, London). Each of the images shows a young woman alone in a room either during or immediately after an abortion.

Rego made these images in response to a referendum on abortion that took place in her native Portugal on 28 June 1998. Portugal, a predominantly Catholic country, has restrictive laws on abortion, allowing it only in specific cases: danger to the life of the mother, incurable illness of the foetus or if the pregnancy was the result of rape. This conservative stance is historic, dating back to the criminalisation of abortion under President António de Oliveira Salazar, whose dictatorship ran from 1932-68. In 1998 a proposal to liberalise the law was approved by Parliament, allowing termination on demand up to ten weeks. A coalition backed by the Church demanded a referendum on the issue. Just under 32% of the population voted, and the proposed change was defeated by less than two percentage points, with 50.92% voting against. In effect, this result blocked the passage of the law (see Lisboa, pp.143-5). Rego was dismayed by the outcome, and galvanized to make work in response. She has said, ‘I got so angry because I’d seen it all in Portugal – the suffering that went on when abortion was totally illegal. It was mind-boggling’ (quoted in ‘Paula Rego interviewed by Edward King, February 2001’, Celestina’s House, p.11).

The women Rego depicts in the series are in domestic surroundings, suggesting that theirs are illegal backstreet abortions. Their bodies and faces are contorted in pain but the women remain stoic and strong, defiant in their right to choose to terminate their pregnancies regardless of whether the church and state approve. Rego emphasises the fact that each woman is alone, framing each one starkly and keeping additional visual information to a minimum. The focus of these images is the women’s physical and mental anguish. Rego avoids sensationalism by declining to display blood and gore. She said, ‘I tried to do it full frontal but I didn’t want to show ... anything to sicken, because people wouldn’t look at it then. And what you want to do is make people look ... make it agreeable, and in that way make people look at life’ (quoted in Celestina’s House, p.11). Her project was directly political and her intention from the outset was to exhibit these images in Portugal. Etchings, pastels and drawings on the subject were shown at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon in 1999 and images from the series have since been used to illustrate press articles about the issue of abortion.

This etching relates to the left panel of Triptych, 1998. It shows a woman lying on a bed, curled up in pain in a foetal position. Her brow is furrowed and her mouth is turned down in a sour grimace. She thrusts her right arm out over the top of her legs, tightly clenching her fist as if to distract herself from a greater pain. The print has a rich chiaroscuro texture expressed in the dramatic folds of drapery on the bed and behind the figure. On the floor below the bed is a bucket, its dark surface a contrast to the woman’s pale body. The open bucket fluctuates between being an object and a symbol. It is a prosaic receptacle for the aborted foetus and a distorted symbol of the feminine, an ironic riposte to the vases and vessels in traditional figure painting.

Further reading:
Fiona Bradley and Edward King, Paula Rego: Celestina’s House, exhibition catalogue, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, 2001, reproduced no.13 in colour.
Fiona Bradley, Paula Rego, London, 2002.
Maria Manuel Lisboa, Paula Rego’s Map of Memory: National and Sexual Politics, Burlington, Vermont, 2003.

Rachel Taylor
November 2003

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