Giles Oakley on his very personal interpretation of Rego’s painting The Family, and Gillian Forrester on the dark, complex and disquieting humour in the artist’s work
I greatly appreciated your coverage of the death of the artist Paula Rego, especially the fine tribute by Jonathan Jones (‘She is dancing among the greats’, 8 June). There are so many sometimes contradictory layers of meaning in Rego’s art that there will surely never be a definitive interpretation of her work. Nevertheless, I was glad that Jones mentioned her jokes. It really struck me quite forcefully how important humour is in her work when I recently saw a superb Rego retrospective in the Picasso Museum in Málaga, Spain.
With that in mind, I somewhat disagree with Jones’s interpretation of Rego’s masterpiece The Family, which depicts a mother and daughter forcefully dressing the father like a rag doll. It’s undoubtedly based on the grim reality of Rego’s husband suffering from multiple sclerosis, for which she nursed him for several difficult years. Jones sees in the painting the mother resentfully thinking, despite herself, “when will this be over?” Having a comparable neurological disorder, Parkinson’s disease, plus, similarly, a wife and daughter who sometimes provide assistance getting me dressed, I see the three of them not so much consumed with bitterness but laughing together at the fates, defying the awful absurdity of their situation. Of course, I may be deluding myself over the loving support I get from my family, but that too could provide another legitimate reading of the painting.
Giles Oakley
East Sheen, London
