Born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1935, Dame Paula Rego trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Rego is celebrated for her bold and intense paintings, drawings and prints, which intertwine the private and the public, the intimate and the political, the real and the imagined, combining autobiographical elements with stories from literature, folklore, and mythology, references to earlier art, and observations on the contemporary world. Rego lives and works in London and has exhibited widely in Britain and internationally. Since 2004, major retrospectives of her work have been held at Tate Britain, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. See more details here

Nick Willing is a British director, producer and writer of films and television series and Director of the acclaimed BBC documentary ‘Paula Rego Secrets and Stories’, 2017.
Willing is the son of Portuguese painter Paula Rego and English artist Victor Willing and was largely brought up in Portugal, but settled in England at the age of 12. He graduated from The National Film and Television School in 1982 and started directing music videos for bands such as Eurythmics, Bob Geldof, Swing Out Sister, Debbie Gibson, Kirsty MacColl, Kim Appleby, Tony Banks, and Nik Kershaw. Throughout this period he was also writing screenplays, and in 1996 his adaptation of the Steve Szilagyi novel Photographing Fairies was financed by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and made into a feature film. Photographing Fairies was a critical success and won several awards including the Méliès d’Or in 1998. Alice in Wonderland followed with a cast which included Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Kingsley, Robbie Coltrane, Martin Short, Peter Ustinov, Gene Wilder, Ken Dodd, Christopher Lloyd, George Wendt and Miranda Richardson. Alice was made for NBC television in 1999 and won 4 Primetime Emmys.

Paula Rego Secrets and Stories, 2017 directed by Willing gives unique insight into the life and work of celebrated painter Paula Rego. Notoriously private and guarded, Rego opens up for the first time, surprising her son with secrets and stories of her unique life, battling fascism, a misogynistic art world and manic depression. The documentary combines a huge archive of home movies and family photographs with interviews spanning 60 years and in-depth studies of Rego at work in her studio. What emerges is a powerful personal portrait of an artist whose legacy will survive the years, graphically illustrated in pastel, charcoal and oil paint.

Catherine Lampert is curator of the exhibition Paula Rego, Obedience and Defiance. Lampert is an independent Curator and Art historian. She is a Visiting Professor, University of the Arts. Lampert has curated numerous exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery, the Royal Academy of the Arts, and the Whitechapel Gallery, where she was Director from 1988 through 2001. She was co-curator of Bare Life. London artists working from life 1950-80 which was shown in Munster last year. Lampert is the author of many books, including Francis Alӱs, the Prophet and the Fly (2003), Euan Uglow. The Complete Paintings (2007) and Frank Auerbach: Speaking and Painting (2015) Peter Doig by Richard Shiff (Author),‎ Catherine Lampert (Author) 2011. Lampert is intimately familiar with Auerbach’s practice, having sat for portraits by the artist since 1978.

Paula Rego, Obedience and Defiance Programmed in the context of the exhibition Paula Rego, Obedience and Defiance, this live talk marks the first retrospective of Paula Rego’s work to be held in Ireland. The exhibition spans over 50 years of her international career, from the 1960s to the 2010s. Rego trained at the Slade School of Fine Art and has lived in London since the early 1970s. Paula Rego, Obedience and Defiance is curated by the distinguished art historian and former director of Whitechapel Gallery, Catherine Lampert. See more details here