The funeral of the painter Paula Rego, who died on June 8 at the age of 87, will take place this Thursday in London, while Portugal celebrates a day of national mourning.
According to gallery owner Rui Brito, who represents the artist’s work in Portugal, the Thursday’s ceremony in London will be “very restricted, reserved only for family and closest friends”.
When the date of the funeral was announced, the Government confirmed that the day of national mourning would take place this Thursday.
“Under the terms of the decree approved by the Council of Ministers on June 8, The Government announces that the day of national mourning for the death of Paula Rego will be commemorated on June 30date on which the artist’s funeral takes place, according to the artist’s relatives”, reads a statement released by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers on June 21.
National mourning for the death of Paula Rego on June 30
The text justified that “Paula Rego was a great artist of the Portuguese culture, with an unavoidable recognized work in the national and international artistic panorama, leaving a unique legacy that will last forever in the history of the plastic arts”.
One of the most internationally acclaimed and award-winning Portuguese artists, Paula Rego passed away on the morning of June 8, at home, with her children.
Born on January 26, 1935 in Lisbon, the artist studied in the 1960s at the Slade School of Art in London, where she settled permanently from the 1970s, after marrying the painter Victor Willing (1928- 1988), but with visits to Portugal.
In 2009, a museum that houses part of Paula Rego’s work, Casa das Histórias, was inaugurated in Cascais, which has organized exhibitions of her work and in dialogue with other artists.
The artist was awarded, among others, the Turner Prize in 1989 and the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Grand Prize in 2013.
She was distinguished, in Portugal, with the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Sant’Iago da Espada in 2004 and, in the United Kingdom, with the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010, who awarded her the title of Dame , for his contribution to the arts.
In 2019 he received the Medal of Cultural Merit from the Government of Portugal.
The Portuguese Government declared national mourning for the death of the painter Paula Rego on the day of her funeral, a tribute approved by the Council of Ministers on June 8.
For his part, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced, on June 10, in London, that he will posthumously award the Great Collar of the Order of Camões to the painter Paula Rego, a distinction that will be formally awarded in Lisbon. .
Source: Observadora
