WHAT?  Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First

WHERE?  Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

WHEN?  Now until 19th April

WHY GO?  For playful provocative art. The accompanying booklet to this retrospective of Wylie’s work tells that aged 4, Disney’s Snow White was the trigger for her love of film which has filtered down throughout her lifetime’s work and indeed film is frequently the inspiration behind many of her whimsical paintings, along with literature, history and celebrity culture.
This huge body of work, from bold wall-to-wall paintings to tiny drawings of one single item that sparks her interest to pursue the subject further, has a playful dream-like quality. Everything is littered with pithy statements designed to provoke.
At the age of 91, Wylie is perfectly in tune with contemporary culture and humorously depicts current affairs through her work which she creates in her Kent studio surrounded by a disorderly mess of scrunched newspapers, pots and paints, rarely tidied in an orderly fashion. This is a free-wheeling obsessive artist who does not conform to ‘rules’.
Enjoy her witticisms; her playful provocative work is a far cry from philosophical ‘art speak’ that no one readily admits they can decipher!

IN THE KNOW  Rarely seen without her signature red lipstick, Rose Wylie loves fashion almost as much as she loves art. She was photographed by Juergen Teller for Loewe’s Spring/Summer 2025 campaign under the artistic direction of Jonathan Anderson, creative director at the time.