Paula Rego : Crivelli's Garden

The first book to focus on Dame Paula Rego's little-known monumental triptych, Crivelli's Garden

Dame Paula Rego RA (1935-2022) was a British-Portuguese artist whose large-scale figurative paintings explored human relationships and the experience of women through compelling, often subversive compositions.

Inspired by the predella panel of Carlo Crivelli's altarpiece La Madonna della Rondine (after 1490), Rego produced Crivelli's Garden in 1990-91 while she was artist in residence at the National Gallery. This monumental triptych reimagined the site of Crivelli's panel as a radical space populated by female figures from myth, folklore, and the Bible, alongside animals drawn from Aesop's fables and other classical texts.

This publication features an original short story, written by acclaimed novelist Chloe Aridjis in response to the painting, and an art historical essay by curator Priyesh Mistry. Among the illustrations are new photographs of Crivelli’s Garden and Rego’s preparatory studies, some of which have never been published. 

Schedule: The National Gallery, London (July 20-October 29, 2023)

• Author: Priyesh Mistry, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Projects at the National Gallery, London
• Paperback: 64 pages | 40 colour illustrations
• Date published: July 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9781857096965
• Product Dimensions: 27.0 x 23.0 cm