Paula Rego, Secrets & Stories

To make a biographical study of your own mother is a challenge to any documentary maker; it is even more formidable when your mother is a famous artist. Yet Nick Willing's portrait of Paula Rego succeeds beautifully as this film recounts the unlikely story of Rego's career. From her bourgeois background in Salazar's Portugal, she arrives at the Slade School of Art in the randy 1950s, where her future husband Victor Willing greets her at a party with the command, "Take down your knickers." A tumultuous marriage to Willing and three children never impede Rego's exploration of her own imagery, memories and fantasies. A life split between Portugal and London culminates in critical acclaim for Rego's paintings, patronage from Charles Saatchi and stellar price tags attached to her work by the Marlborough Gallery. Rego's compelling imagery and her unflinching honesty make the film a visual and psychological treasure trove.