The response to The Picture Comes First, which is full of exuberant canvases several feet high \u2013 and several times the size of their minute nonagenarian creator \u2013 has been glowing. \u201cGuaranteed to leave you in a better mood than when you arrived,\u201d said Time Out. \u201cThere won\u2019t be a more invigorating exhibition all year,\u201d wrote The Telegraph in a five-star review. Wylie this year features on The Independent\u2019s annual influence list for International Women\u2019s Day<\/a>, for her trailblazing career in the art world. When I call her landline at her home in Kent, the week after the show\u2019s opening, she describes herself as \u201ccompletely happy\u201d about it all.<\/p>\n Somewhat staggeringly, Wylie\u2019s exhibition is the first time a female painter has had a solo show in the Royal Academy\u2019s main galleries in its 268-year history. \u201cI think it\u2019s high time,\u201d Wylie says of the oversight. \u201cObviously it\u2019s a very poor situation that that\u2019s happened. I don\u2019t know, I can\u2019t\u2026 I can\u2019t believe that there\u2019s been no woman painter in the main gallery since it started. It\u2019s quite unbelievable and quite, quite obscene, don\u2019t you think? I\u2019m glad it\u2019s broken.\u201d <\/p>\n But Wylie, who studied at Folkestone and Dover School of Art and the Royal College of Art, doesn\u2019t want people to think that\u2019s why the show is there, and wants to be celebrated for her work rather than her gender. \u201cI want people to respond to the paintings. Because that\u2019s my business. That\u2019s what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Rose Wylie, ‘Pink Skater (Will I Win, Will I Win)’, 2015 (Rose Wylie)<\/p>\n Featuring new work as well as art from across her career, The Picture Comes First is full of enjoyably giant canvases that showcase Wylie\u2019s humour, and her eye for moments of everyday pleasure. A plate of breakfast \u2013 with \u201cBREAKFAST\u201d emblazoned underneath \u2013 towers over viewers, while there are several works inspired by her cat Pete. Doodlebugs from a childhood lived through the Blitz creep into works in the show\u2019s first room, while \u201cPink Skater (Will I Win, Will I Win)\u201d, shown on the exhibit\u2019s posters, features a figure skater almost bursting out of the wall. It\u2019s a work that seems to encapsulate the artist\u2019s moment of triumph. My personal favourite, \u201cRW Party Clothes\u201d, is literally that: Wylie in her party clothes. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve painted myself with grey hair,\u201d she says of a work that brims with joie de vivre. \u201cI still wear that outfit.\u201d<\/p>\n Writing about Wylie in 2010 at a time when her reputation was first beginning to rise, Germaine Greer said: \u201cEveryone in the art world knows Wylie, but no one knows what to do with her.\u201d Wylie found that an astute comment. \u201cIt was absolutely true,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes people think they\u2019re not paintings, they think they\u2019re something else. I mean, if you look at the Bayeux Tapestry, you don\u2019t have to think \u2018painting\u2019. It\u2019s something else. So I think people are expecting something else, and they simply didn\u2019t know what to do with them. I think I straddle various directions in the art world and people couldn\u2019t quite pigeonhole me or put me in a box, and they weren\u2019t quite sure how to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, Wylie has had her detractors. The late art critic Brian Sewell famously called one of her works \u201ca daub worthy of a child of four\u201d. But Wylie says it wasn\u2019t painful to be misunderstood, because she never expected to be. \u201cIn fact I think it was a trigger. It was like a carrot. Get on with it.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Rose Wylie’s Nicole Kidman-inspired painting in her Royal Academy show (David Parry\/ Royal Academy of Arts)<\/p>\n After marrying fellow artist Roy Oxlade, who died in 2014, Wylie didn\u2019t paint for 25 years while she raised their three children. It\u2019s not something she resents, because she returned from her years of mothering with more experience, and could paint \u201cin a very focused way\u201d. She rarely hesitates when asked a question, and is instant in her response when I ask if she wished her success had come earlier. \u201cNo. Success, if it comes earlier, can entrap you a bit. If you\u2019re older and you\u2019ve got a lot of work done before anything happens, you\u2019ve been much freer. I think it\u2019s about freedom. I think you need to be free.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most enjoyable aspects of Wylie\u2019s work is her ongoing love affair with cinema. The Picture Comes First includes paintings inspired by Nicole Kidman, Quentin Tarantino films and Disney\u2019s Snow White; she recently watched Saltburn, but hasn\u2019t yet seen Emerald Fennell\u2019s divisive adaptation of Wuthering Heights<\/a>. (She\u2019s a fan of Jacob Elordi<\/a>: \u201cterribly good\u201d, \u201can incredibly handsome young man\u201d.) At the moment she\u2019s painting Bette Davis, \u201ca great muse\u201d with \u201ca terrific face\u201d, and recently made a work featuring her twentysomething granddaughter placed between Mary Queen of Scots and Philip II of Spain. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Rose Wylie, ‘Snowwhite (3) with Duster’, 2018 (Rose Wylie, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner)<\/p>\n So what\u2019s next for a painter in her nineties who shows no signs of stopping? \u201cI\u2019m laughing, I thought I\u2019d finished with this, but the thing is I\u2019ve got a show starting off in Paris in April. Did you know?\u201d Her future ambitions are resolute. \u201cWhat I would like is to be in some major museum exhibition, major, major. I\u2019d love that.\u201d Museums, she says, matter because \u201cthey are for the people. They\u2019re open, they\u2019re free, they\u2019re part of our cultural heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n Her Royal Academy show may be a historic first for female painters, but Wylie\u2019s in good company in a strong year for exhibitions by and about women. Tracey Emin<\/a>\u2019s recently opened retrospective at Tate Modern, which has visitors clamouring to see her work, will be followed by shows about Frida Kahlo<\/a> and Cuban artist Ana Mendieta. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole clutch of us, a mass of women. The country will be sick of women in a minute.\u201d But surely not! \u201cThat\u2019s a good answer,\u201d Wylie says with gusto. \u201cI agree with you. I\u2019m never sick of women.\u201d<\/p>\n The Picture Comes First is at the Royal Academy until 19 April.<\/p>\n![\"Rose](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Key-55.jpg\")
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