In 1989, Paula Rego (1935–2022) made one of her most coveted bodies of works, a group of 25 prints reimagining English nursery rhymes, seemingly innocent verses that continue to be retold to children after hundreds of years. Rego transformed the characters and stories of tales such as Little Miss Muffet, the Three Blind Mice and the Cat and the Fiddle, into dark and complex psychological themes.

Rego’s striking take on these scenes will be exhibited at Pitzhanger, in the former bedrooms of Sir John Soane’s then country house on the western fringes of London.

Nursery Rhymes was made at a time when the artist was reading English story books to her grandchild, in the same way her own grandmother told her fables as a young girl in Portugal. Over an intense period of a few months in 1989 Rego worked on the etching plates for the series, travelling through the tales — also including Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill — and playing out the psychological dramas in which sexual or macabre elements are disguised by an apparent innocence.

Throughout her lifetime she drew inspiration from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, literature, folklore, and personal moments in her own life. The artist was inspired by both European literature, and childhood stories, those not attributed to known authors, but handed down from generation to generation. At the heart of her work is how these stories can shape us.

Rego’s Nursery Rhymes will be exhibited concurrently with Many Stories, which will be on display elsewhere in the Manor and galleries.