Paula Rego was born in Lisbon on 26 January 1935. She grew up in a republican and liberal family, linked to both English and French culture, and studied at St. Julian's School in Carcavelos, spending her childhood and adolescence in Estoril. In the 1950s, her father encouraged her to pursue her artistic career away from the Portugal of Salazar's dictatorship, and Paula Rego enrolled at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London, aged just 17. She met several artists at the school, including her future husband, Victor Willing, whom she married in 1959 and with whom she would later have three children (Carolina, Victoria and Nicholas).

A painter and art critic, Victor Willing (1928, Alexandria - 1988, London) became one of the foremost critics of Paula Rego's work and, on several occasions, made what have proved to be some fundamental interpretations of her work. In fact, many of her pieces contain either explicit or implicit references to "Vic". These references are most noticeable in work produced from the mid-1980s, while her husband was in the final stages of the multiple sclerosis which eventually led to his death.

Having divided her time between Portugal and London throughout the 1960s, Paula Rego settled permanently in London in 1976. However, she continued to visit Portugal frequently, returning mostly to her family home in Ericeira. This house was to become a regular feature of her artistic work, since it held many memories and evoked images relating to a certain "Portuguese culture" she associated with her childhood. A further link to Portuguese culture would come later, in the form of Lila Nunes, Vic's former nurse, who is of Portuguese background and has been Paula's favourite model since 1988.

Paula Rego's work got her important recognition fairly early on in her career but it was in particular after the 1990s, when the artist was already in her fifties, that she became a fundamental reference not only in Portuguese and English art circles, but all over the world. She was regularly invited to produce work for galleries and specific exhibitions, often establishing a dialogue with their collections. In 1990, she was appointed the first Associated Artist of the National Gallery in London.

With her prodigious imagination, Paula Rego has explored many different techniques and artistic languages over the course of her career, while continuing to display surprising coherence throughout her work. She has held countless solo and retrospective exhibitions at leading international museums and galleries, as well as winning a host of awards and prizes.

She currently lives and works in London, and is represented by Marlborough Fine Art.