ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies that positioning with an attitude of resistance that is implied in each artist’s approach to specific formal and conceptual instruments. Resistance is therefore enacted through creative productions that challenge ideological, historical, cultural, and artistic formulae through which social codes of behaviour and national identity are crystallised. Paula Rego, Fernanda Paixao dos Santos, Joao Cutileiro, and Jorge Vieira explored London as an artistic destination for the first time during the 1950s. In Rego’s case, the identity crisis mentioned by Pamuk quickly resolved into an aesthetic sedimentation, formed by these multiple components. In 1954, Rego’s efforts paid off when she participated in that year’s Summer Composition competition, winning its first prize with her interpretation of Dylan Thomas’s radio play Under Milk Wood, first broadcast in the same year. Rego’s painting was probably created for the 1953 Summer Composition Competition, the theme of which was precisely ‘Celebration’.
