Paula Rego

Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London

Ivor Braka, London

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1998 

London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Paula Rego, 1998, n.p., illustrated in colour and illustrated on the front cover

Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia; and Washington, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Paula Rego, 2007, p. 164, illustrated in colour 

Fiona Bradley, Paula Rego, London 2002, p. 87, illustrated in colour 

Colour: The colour in the catalogue is very accurate although the overall tonality is slightly deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals some extremely minor lifting to the top left corner and some adhesive residue to the corner tips which is related to when the work was adhered to the backing board. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1997, Portuguese born Paula Rego’s Looking Out is a paradigmatic example of the artist’s powerful Father Amaro series, which subtly fuses delight and menace in equal measure to explore the grand themes of lust, faith and femininity. Inspired by the lustrous materiality of two paintings by the Spanish seventeenth-century master Bartolomé Estéban Murillo at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, Two Peasant Boys and a Negro Boy and Invitation to the Game of Pelota, Rego became enthralled by the concept of creating her own costume drama. The nationally revered novel O Crime do Padre Amaro (The Sin of Father Amaro) by the nineteenth century Portuguese writer, Eça de Queirós, was to provide the perfect muse for this drama. Indeed, an overriding passion for storytelling and a deep-seated conviction that it remains the role of serious paintings to do so, is what truly sets Rego’s art apart from her contemporaries. In 1998, Rego was invited by the Dulwich Picture Gallery to exhibit this formidable new series alongside the very works by Murillo that sparked her imagination, in a show that was hailed by critic John McEwen as “the best contemporary show in town in the oldest and most charming of our public galleries” (John McEwen, ‘Rego's paintbrush soars over sin, love and girl power’, The Telegraph, 27 June 1998, online resource). Indicative of the importance of Looking Out within this thought-provoking series, it was prominently illustrated on the front cover of the accompanying exhibition catalogue.

Published in 1876 to great controversy and banned until only fairly recently for its anti-clerical nature, O Crime do Padre Amaro was the first and most personal novel by the great Eça de Queirós. A tale of provincial claustrophobia, corruption of the clergy and society’s oppressive attitude towards women, O Crime do Padre Amaro represents something of a Portuguese Madame Bovary. It tells the story of a young man Amaro Vieira who, struggling to find a true vocation, is pushed into priesthood, landing a job in a small cathedral town of Leiria. Here he finds board with a widow and her comely daughter Amelia, whose affections he soon wins. Although already engaged to another man, João Eduardo, the pair start on a clandestine affair, which results in Amelia falling pregnant. Disastrous for our heroine, Amelia is forced to isolate herself in the countryside to have the child in secret and to avoid bringing further shame upon her family. Tragically both mother and child die in childbirth and at the end of the novel Amaro is left just as he was when we first met him: completely alone. Speaking of her decision to depict O Crime do Padre, Rego expands: “I chose a very Portuguese novel because I felt I needed a social activity rather than the stuff you find in folk tales. The Sin of Father Amaro is critical of society, very well observed and delicious to read, but above all it is a love story, I am always immensely moved by it. My father greatly admired this book at the time when it was still banned. These pictures are a homage to him” (Paula Rego quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Paula Rego, 1998, n.p.).

Looking Out is the first painting where we meet our protagonist Amelia. Posed for by Rego’s collaborator Lila Nunes, here Amelia is depicted alone, wistfully looking out of a small window with her hand pressed to her cheek, confined by the claustrophobic grey walls of the room. She is a timeless image of frustration, entrapment, a woman seeking deliverance. As is characteristic of Rego’s approach to storytelling, Looking Out does not illustrate a specific scene in the novel, rather it could be Amelia at several points: in the present work Rego presents her constant condition. Perhaps it is a scene early on where she is lovingly looking out of her window for Amaro to rescue her from the confines of bourgeois life, or we may find ourselves later on in the story where she is desperately searching for her former fiancé so she may escape her fate of shame and ultimately death that awaits her. True to the spirit of O Crime do Padre Amaro, where Amelia's clothes feed Amaro's repressed desires, in Looking Out Amelia’s lavishly applied garments have been meticulously wrought in small, tense hatchings with satin and lace bustling together and so adding to the overwhelming sense of provincial suffocation that suffuses both painting and novel. Inhabiting an eerie world that is charged with a brooding air and heady eroticism, Looking Out is Rego at her very finest. It is the perfect exploration of love, lust and womanhood that is not only the life fuel of Eça’s O Crime do Padre but Rego’s oeuvre as a wider whole.