Paula Rego: Pendle Witches

5 February – 23 May 2027
Project Space

Experience the illuminating narratives of Paula Rego’s Pendle Witch series.

The display focuses on a suite of etchings and aquatint prints titled Pendle Witches, which Paula Rego (1935–2022) executed in 1996, inspired by poems by the writer Blake Morrison (b. 1950). Morrison’s poems blend private, domestic themes and everyday situations with references to major events, including disquieting murder cases and ecological threats. At the time of the making of the Pendle Witches, Rego and Morrison were close friends, as Morrison has said, ‘because we were exploring similar issues in our work – grief, violence, misogyny, sexuality, the knowingness or otherwise of children’. Yet, far from being illustrations of Morrison’s poems, Rego drew inspiration from them to create her own stories.  

The title relates to the notorious trial of the Pendle Witches in 1612 in Lancashire which led to the execution of eight women and two men accused of witchcraft. Women are the protagonists of the Pendle Witches series. From sexual awakening and sisterly companionship to the experience of violence and natural disaster, they imaginatively render a range of vicissitudes and hint at inner as much as outer turmoil. 

The sharp narrative deployed by the poems is effectively rendered through the techniques of etching and sugar lift aquatint, by scratching and biting the plates to create highly textured, high-contrast images.  

This display is accompanying the major exhibition Paula Rego: Dog Woman on display in the Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries.

This display is included in the Permanent Collection or Permanent Collection + Exhibition ticket. 

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