According to the Munch Museum in Oslo, a comprehensive retrospective titled Dance Among Thorns running through August 2 displays a rare dialogue between Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego and Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Featuring over 140 works, the exhibition highlights Rego’s exploration of power structures, female agency, and psychological tension, drawing direct connections to Munch’s work.
Paula Rego and Edvard Munch: A Lifelong Artistic Dialogue
According to museum records, Rego first encountered Munch’s work during a school trip to the Tate Gallery in London in the autumn of 1951, when she was just sixteen years old. In a letter to her mother, Maria, Rego described how deeply she was moved by Munch’s paintings, drawings, and prints, specifically citing the 1897 painting Inheritance, which depicts a weeping woman holding a skeletal child.
According to the Munch Museum, the current exhibition places Rego’s 1988 large-scale painting Dance—borrowed from the Tate Britain collection—in direct conversation with Munch’s 1899 work The Dance of Life. Both artists examined family relationships, memory, and existential loneliness. The exhibition also features Rego’s recently discovered and previously unexhibited 1953 painting Dryness, highlighting a shared commitment to probing the emotional space between pleasure and pain.
Feminism, Politics, and Agency in Rego’s Work
According to exhibition curators, Rego’s perspective differed from Munch’s through its overtly political and feminist lens, shaped by her youth under the fascist regime of Salazar in Portugal. Growing up under strict censorship and religious norms where women were treated as second-class citizens, Rego developed a lifelong focus on the tension between oppression and freedom.
Influenced by the ideas of writers Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer, Rego turned her artistic lens toward the realities of women’s bodies and state control. According to museum documentation, the exhibition includes seven of the ten pastel works from her 1998 Untitled (Abortion) series. Created in direct response to Portugal’s failed 1998 referendum on abortion law reform, these works depict women who have undergone illegal procedures with raw honesty, avoiding both victimhood and heroic romanticization.
Did you know? Paula Rego’s unflinching visual commentary on abortion rights played a documented role in shifting public debate in Portugal, leading up to the successful 2007 referendum where 59 percent of voters supported the decriminalization of abortion. In 2010, she was appointed a Dame of the Order of the British Empire.
Expanding the Modern and Contemporary Program in Oslo
According to Munch Museum director Tone Hansen, the institution’s new waterfront building—opened in 2021 to house the world’s largest collection of Edvard Munch’s art—was designed to host broader modern and contemporary art exhibitions alongside its permanent collection.
“Izstāde Deja starp ērkšķiem uzdrošinās iedziļināties mākslinieces daiļradē,” Hansen stated via the museum, noting that the exhibition provides the rigorous research and dedicated space that Rego’s complex body of work requires. By pairing Rego with Munch, the museum emphasizes how personal experiences of gender, upbringing, and power remain urgently relevant to contemporary audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Paula Rego exhibition open in Oslo?
According to the Munch Museum, Dance Among Thorns is on view through August 2.
Where can visitors view the exhibition?
The exhibition is hosted at the Munch Museum located on the Oslo waterfront, which opened its new facility in 2021.
How did Edvard Munch influence Paula Rego?
According to Rego’s personal letters and historical records, discovering Munch’s work at the Tate in 1951 inspired her to pivot toward modern painting and focus deeply on emotional expression, familial structures, and existential isolation, themes visible in works like her 1988 painting Dance.
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