Royal Academy to Present Major Retrospective of British Painter Rose Wylie

The Royal Academy of Arts will present the largest survey to date of the celebrated British painter Rose Wylie in a major exhibition opening this spring. Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First will run in the main galleries at Royal Academy of Arts from 28 February to 19 April 2026, bringing together more than 90 works spanning the artist’s remarkable career.

The exhibition offers an expansive overview of Wylie’s distinctive practice, which blends bold figurative painting with references drawn from art history, literature, cinema, contemporary culture and the artist’s own surroundings. Widely admired for her energetic brushwork and playful approach to image-making, Wylie has built a reputation for paintings that appear spontaneous yet are deeply rooted in observation and memory.

A painter of contemporary life, Wylie frequently draws on personal experience as well as historical events. Some of the earliest works in the exhibition revisit her childhood memories of London during the Second World War, including recollections of bombing raids experienced during the Blitz. Paintings such as Rosemount (Coloured) (1999) and Wing Tips and Blue Doodlebugs (2022–23) reflect these formative experiences while demonstrating the artist’s ability to transform memory into vivid visual storytelling.

Wylie’s early artistic training took place at the Folkestone and Dover School of Art in Kent during the 1950s, where she studied anatomical drawing and figurative painting. After pausing her career to raise a family, she returned to painting in the mid-1980s, establishing a studio in her home in Kent where she continues to work today. One of the pivotal bodies of work from this later period, Room Project 2002–3, will feature prominently in the exhibition. The series marked Wylie’s first major critical breakthrough and reveals her growing ambition to create expansive canvases populated by recurring figures, animals and everyday objects.

Drawing plays a central role in Wylie’s creative process, and the exhibition includes several works on paper that highlight this aspect of her practice. Pieces such as Bottom Teeth, Self-Portrait (2016) illustrate the artist’s daily habit of drawing, which she uses to build a vast archive of visual references. Motifs developed in sketch form often resurface years later in paintings, sometimes alongside unexpected combinations of text and imagery.

Another section of the exhibition focuses on Wylie’s fascination with cinema. Her Film Notes series transforms memorable visual moments from films into paintings that capture the structure and framing of cinematic storytelling. Works including Kill Bill (Film Notes) (2007) and Natural Born Killers, Long-shot (Film Notes) (2018) demonstrate how the artist translates camera perspectives, close-ups and dramatic angles into bold pictorial compositions.

Alongside these influences, Wylie frequently turns to contemporary media for inspiration. Photographs from newspapers or the internet—whether depicting historical artefacts, public figures or moments from popular culture—often become starting points for new paintings. Works such as Black Strap (Red Fly) (2011) and Pink Skater (Will I Win, Will I Win)(2015) explore how images circulate in the modern world, reflecting the way visual culture shapes collective memory.

Daily life also remains a constant source of subject matter. The artist’s home, garden and local community regularly appear in her work, as do personal details such as her cat Pete or social gatherings with friends. These moments form a kind of visual diary, reinforcing Wylie’s long-standing interest in the ordinary details that shape everyday experience.

The exhibition concludes with a series of large monochromatic animal paintings created through an unusually physical process. In these works Wylie applied paint directly with her hands, allowing the manipulation of thick layers of pigment to determine the final image. The resulting canvases possess a striking tactile presence, emphasising the artist’s enjoyment of the act of painting itself.

The show continues the Royal Academy’s long tradition of celebrating leading contemporary artists among its members. Wylie was elected a Royal Academician in 2014, joining a distinguished community that has included figures such as David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Marina Abramović and Ai Weiwei.

Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First is curated by Katharine Stout, co-founder of the Drawing Room, alongside Tarini Malik and Colm Guo-Lin Peare from the Royal Academy. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring essays by Stout, writer Jennifer Higgie and former Tate Modern director Frances Morris.

Visitor information

Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First runs 28 February – 19 April 2026 at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1.

Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 6pm, with late opening until 9pm on Fridays.

Tickets start from £21, with concessions available. Visitors aged 16 and under enter free, while 16–25 year olds can access half-price tickets (terms apply). Advance booking with timed tickets is recommended via the Royal Academy website.