Ben Uri is honoured to have been selected to present a most revealing and interesting exhibition telling the story of Paula Rego and Anthony Rudolf's 26 year relationship. Anthony was her close companion and principal male model from 1996 until the end of her life in 2022.
The show is beautifully illustrated through the art given by Paula to Anthony during this quarter of a century.
This show will exhibit over 40 works, the vast majority never seen in public before, and tells a different variant of well-known stories in art history about the artist, the muse, the model and the relationships accruing.
Anthony Rudolf (b 1942) is a distinguished writer, poet, translator and ran the Menard Press.
Dame Paula, born in Portugal in 1935, migrated to London in 1951 and passed on the 8th June 2022. She was buried in London alongside her late husband, the artist Victor Willing. She is survived by three children: son Nick, daughters Cas and Victoria, who together are the custodians of the Rego estate.
Ben Uri Gallery and Museum successfully transformed into a digitally led academic institution in 2018. Its overarching focus is on the Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British Art since 1900, of which Paula Rego is a pre-eminent example alongside Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.
This year its digital content of over 12,000 pages through benuri.org and its extensive databases of over 3,300 profiles through buru.org.uk will be accessed over 350,000 times, and usage continues to grow exponentially.