Paula Rego in het Munch Museum

Power and vulnerability, desire and anger – Paula Rego, an influential artist and feminist icon, explored these themes with a striking blend of humour and gravity. For the first time in the Nordic region, discover the full breadth of her figurative, poetic and political practice in this captivating exhibition.

Across nine sections and more than 140 works, the exhibition at MUNCH showcases the breadth of Rego’s art, from her early political collages to textile sculptures and magnificent figurative tableaux. The title ‘dance among thorns’ refers to Rego’s interest in fairy tales, the many thorns of fascism, and to dance as a motif. The first section presents the link to Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and the similarity of composition between Munch’s Dance of Life (1899) and Rego’s main work The Dance. New research reveals how her visit to the major Munch-retrospective at Tate Gallery in 1951 sparked Rego’s interest in this artist. Two years later she painted Drought (1953), now exhibited for the first time. This works demonstrates a striking resemblance to The Scream (1893) in both colours and paint strokes.

Find out more here