22 May – 6 September 2026
“We interpret the world through stories… Everybody makes sense of things in their own way, but if you have stories, it helps.” – Paula Rego
Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature presents a major body of work by one of the most significant figurative artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Developed by Hayward Gallery Touring, the exhibition explores Rego’s lifelong engagement with storytelling and literature through the medium of printmaking.
One of the great printmakers and storytellers of our time, Paula Rego drew inspiration from a vast range of sources – from traditional folklore and fairy tales, to literary classics and nursery rhymes.
Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature will present three of the artist’s most ambitious and profound series of works in printmaking: Nursery Rhymes, Peter Pan and Jane Eyre, made across a decade of the artist’s life. Each series will be accompanied by a variety of personal items from the artist, many of which have never been publicly displayed before. Unseen preparatory sketches, etching plates and Rego’s very own childhood copy of Peter Pan will offer audiences an intimate portrayal of the artist’s lifelong fascination with literature and insight into how the artist transformed this material into startlingly original and unexpected pictures.
From menacing oversized creatures etched into life from children’s nursery rhymes such as Little Miss Muffet and Three Blind Mice, to the almost hallucinatory depictions of Neverland from Peter Pan and the tumultuous relationships based on power read about in Jane Eyre, Rego’s work tells stories that combine fantasy and imagination, innocence and cruelty, in order to explore the complexities of life and the experience of women in particular, in all its strangeness and mystery. Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature aims to spark new ways of seeing the world from audiences in relation to these seemingly familiar, age-old stories.