Paula Rego

Edward Totah Gallery, London
Acquired directly from the above by the father of the present owner
Thence by descent to the present owner

Born in Portugal in 1935, Paula Rego settled permanently in London in 1976 and is now firmly recognized as one of the most important living figurative painters. She first came to public attention in the early 1980s with various series of works on paper which mapped animal and vegetable characters into human social situations and states of mind. The Drawing Lesson is an extremely rare and poignant work from this period. It was the first of a new series which saw her moving away from the Vivian Girls and Operas, which depicted fantastical floating and flying figures, and more towards potentially real figurative situations which incorporated animals as humans. In this small group of works, the human-animal relationship is portrayed as reciprocal and it paved the way for the famous Girl and Dog series which immediately followed it. The Drawing Lesson lovingly portrays a figure at an easel with a rabbit, which appears to be hinting at her origins as an artist. Beautifully drawn, one can immediately sense the tenderness shared by the two main protagonists at the easel as the hand is guided through its first expressive steps.