A man in a suit sits on the edge of a bed. A woman – his wife, perhaps, or a maid – is holding up his arm and apparently taking his pulse, while her other arm appears to be smothering his mouth and nose; a girl – his daughter? – stands in front of him between his splayed legs. Another girl stands near a window, her hands clasped in what could be malicious satisfaction, or perhaps in prayer. Are they helping the man, or hurting him? At first glance, it’s hard to tell. The picture, Rego explains, was originally called The Raising of Lazarus. The woman is, in fact, dressing the man; the girl standing between his legs is rubbing herself against him, trying to excite him sexually in the hope it might bring him to life, 'and, of course, it didn’t.’ Rego gives a small, sad smile. 'Shame.’ The little girl, her hands clasped together, is praying for a miracle.
Rego would later memorialise the incident (of telling her father she was pregran) in a picture, Pregnant Rabbit Telling Her Parents (1982), one of a number in which she has used animals as ciphers for human dramas. In the picture, nails have been driven into the father’s leg. 'They were hurts,’ Rego says. 'Although he’d been so kind to her, she’d hurt him.’
War was completed in London, where Rego moved permanently in 1976. The artist has claimed that the work was a response to a photograph published in the Guardian newspaper in the early stages of the Iraq War, which began in March 2003. The photograph featured a screaming girl in a white dress running from an explosion, while a woman and a baby remain stationary behind her. Rego explained, ‘I thought I would do a picture about these children getting hurt, but I turned them into rabbits’ heads, like masks. It’s very difficult to do it with humans, it doesn’t get the same kind of feel at all. It seemed more real to transform them into creatures’