At the Royal Academy of Arts, Rose Wylie is bold, raw and joyful

‘Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First’ is the artist's largest retrospective yet

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Rose Wylie painting of a skater, from ‘Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First’ exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London
Rose Wylie, Pink Skater (Will I Win, Will I Win), 2015
(Image credit: Courtesy private collection and JARILAGER Gallery. Photograph courtesy Jari Lager. Photo: Soon-Hak Kwon © Rose Wylie)

Who is Rose Wylie? Born in Kent, England, in 1934, the painter underwent a traditional artistic education at Folkestone and Dover School of Art, and at the Royal College of Art in London. But there, the conventional story ends. Drawn to eclectic inspirations and with a bold, raw style, Wylie eschews cultural parameters; her work is a gorgeous mish-mash of the high- and low-brow that finds inspiration everywhere.

It is a diversity that defines her major new retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts, her largest to date, which unites over 90 paintings and drawings, from her most famous works to the rarely seen.

Rose Wylie painting of woman bleeding on floor, from ‘Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First’ exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London

Rose Wylie, Kill Bill (Film Notes), 2007

(Image credit: Courtesy private collection and JARILAGER Gallery. Photograph courtesy Jari Lager. Photo: Soon-Hak Kwon © Rose Wylie)

The exhibition is visually striking, with the sheer scale of Wylie’s works embodying a desire to create immersive other worlds. Paintings are large-scale and impactful, seeking a joyfulness evident from the start.

The works are arranged thematically, and we begin with Wylie’s early memories of living in Kent and London’s Bayswater during the Second World War. Here, she is attempting to make sense of the foreboding doodlebugs, which are ominous black presences hovering over dogs and ducks splashing in puddles in the park.

Rose Wylie painting of mixed-race couple

Rose Wylie, A Handsome Couple, 2022

(Image credit: Courtesy Edwin Oostmeijer © Rose Wylie. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Photo: Jack Hems)

We cycle through Wylie’s memories alongside her. The artist documents her day pictorially, as a form of diary-keeping, with no distinction made between the mundane and the magical. In her hands, omelettes are things of beauty, yellowly oozing cheese onto finely decorated blue and white plates. Food is a common theme, but everything attracts Wylie’s attention, from hands and birds, to leaves, bees, rats and cats. She draws every day, in sketchbooks or on scraps of paper, capturing things she sees in the garden, or on the news or the internet.

The ubiquity of the objects belies their luscious composition. Thick brushstrokes and glorious bright colours speak to Wylie’s love of the sumptuousness of her chosen medium. She doesn’t like too much ‘pernickety, precious fiddling about’ she has said, and it shows in her raw outlines and tangible representation. In one series of four monochromatic animal paintings, Wylie forgets her paintbrush entirely, smearing and coaxing the paint directly with her hands.

Rose Wylie painting of woman with a duster

Rose Wylie, Snowwhite (3) with Duster, 2018

(Image credit: Private collection © Rose Wylie. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Photo: Jo Moon Price)

Seeing the 90 works gathered together emphasises Wylie’s embrace of the cultural prism. Pop culture, film references, football, art dinners, newspaper stories, biblical references – all are fodder for her rich imagination and love of life, a mischievous retelling of her traditional art-school background.

Rose Wylie painting of disembodied mouth and teeth, in black and white

Rose Wylie, Bottom Teeth, Self-Portrait, 2016

(Image credit: Courtesy Sven Petersen and Holly Frean © Rose Wylie. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner)

Upon entering the show, you receive Rose Wylie’s A-Z, a small catalogue she wrote to accompany the 2025 exhibition ‘Flick and Float’ at the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern. The texts inside reference what is significant to her, from A for Abstraction to Z for Zeitgeist (‘gloomy’ is her only comment for the latter). Her selection, and her paintings, are defined by a freedom, from hierarchy and expectation. Wylie is an artist confident and joyful in her identity. Under T, she chooses Taboo, adding: ‘Not sure there are any.’

‘Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First ’at the Royal Academy of Arts from 28 February – 19 April 2026

royalacademy.org.uk

Rose Wylie painting of woman and bugs

Rose Wylie, Black Strap (Red Fly), 2012

(Image credit: Courtesy Charlotte and Philip Colbert. Photograph courtesy Jari Lager. Photo: Soon-Hak Kwon © Rose Wylie)
Hannah Silver
Hannah Silver

Hannah Silver is a writer and editor with over 20 years of experience in journalism, spanning national newspapers and independent magazines. Currently Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*, she has overseen offbeat art trends and conducted in-depth profiles for print and digital, as well as writing and commissioning extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury since joining in 2019.