Paula Rego

This piece is from Paula Rego’s 1989 series of etching and aquatint prints, Nursery Rhymes. Rego put her own distinctive storytelling spin on the nursery stories and fairy tales. Here, she presents the story of Little Miss Muffet, specifically when ‘along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away’. By making the spider enormous and giving it a human face, Rego completely alters the tone of the rhyme and makes it altogether more sinister, as the spider’s leg strokes Miss Muffet’s knee.

• Artist Paula Rego
• Artwork Little Miss Muffet, from the series 'Nursery Rhymes'
• Exhibition Paula Rego
• Date of work 1989
• Credit Original: Graphite on paper155 x 215 mmCollection Ostrich Arts Ltd (PR)© Paula Rego

Paula Rego was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1935 and has travelled between London and Portugal throughout her life. She studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and throughout her career she has revolutionised the way in which women are represented, playing a key role in redefining figurative art in the UK and internationally. Her early paintings in Portugal were semi-abstract, sometimes applied to violent or political subjects that revealed a love of story-telling that had been awakened in her as a child by folk-tales related by a great-aunt. She is drawn to subjects that are well known, and takes her imagery from sources as varied as Peter Pan and Mary Magdalene. Her work is part of many public collections, including Tate’s collection.

• Product Code S22220