Her most recent painting here is The Pillowman, a triptych named after a recent play by Martin McDonagh.
The Pillowman is a creature of stuffed bed linen and buttonhole eyes who helps children kill themselves before they get the chance to experience the bitter disappointments of adulthood. In Rego's pictures, however, it looks rather as if it's the Pillowman who should be frightened of the child.
Earlier canvases, from the 1960s and 1970s, show gestural, semi-abstract painting in muddy colours, though there are hints of the violence that is to become explicit in her work from the 1980s onwards.
The small display here continues from that mid-point in which her vision as a story-teller was crystallised.
Until Jan 2, Tate Britain, Millbank SW1, daily 10am to 5.50pm, free. Tel: 020 7887 8008. Tube: Pimlico
