Paula Rego (1935–2022) is among the most important and influential female figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Raised under the repressive Estado Novo (New State) regime in Portugal, she later studied in England at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1950s. Rego’s early works reveal the influence of Surrealism in their emphasis on automatism and the subconscious, though she is best known for her psychologically charged narrative works made from the 1980s, which tackle themes of fear, power and women’s rights. In this dreamlike painting, a male painter is seemingly being absorbed into a large canvas whilst a female artist paints over him with green pigment. To the right, a woman is in labour and, to the left, two women are seated by mirrors as flames rage behind them. The surreal composition allegorises Rego’s attempt to insert herself into the male-dominated canon of Western art history.