Rose Wylie: The Picture Comes First

The Royal Academy of Arts will open 2026 with a landmark exhibition dedicated to one of Britain’s most recognisable contemporary artists, Rose Wylie RA. The Picture Comes First offers a sweeping look at Wylie’s career, presenting more than ninety works that reveal the depth, humour, and unmistakable energy of her visual world.

Wylie’s art is instantly identifiable: bold lines, vivid colour, unfiltered gesture, and references that move seamlessly between high culture and everyday life. This new exhibition brings those qualities into focus, tracing her creative journey from childhood memories of wartime London to her present-day practice in her Kent studio.

Visitors will encounter early autobiographical scenes, expressive figurative compositions, and large-scale canvases alive with cinematic rhythm. A dedicated section spotlights Wylie’s acclaimed Film Notes works, where the artist translates movie moments into dynamic, fragmented images that reimagine the language of film.

Her ongoing commitment to drawing — the foundation of her artistic process — is woven throughout the exhibition. Everyday objects, news photographs, online imagery, her garden, her cat, and fleeting moments become part of an ever-growing archive that reappears in new and unexpected forms.

The exhibition concludes with Wylie’s dramatic monochrome animal paintings, created through a direct, tactile approach that highlights the physicality of her work and the immediacy of her mark-making.

Curated by Katharine Stout, Tarini Malik, and Colm Guo-Lin Peare, the exhibition continues the RA’s longstanding tradition of championing influential Royal Academicians and presenting major surveys of their work.

Press access begins on 24 February 2026, with the exhibition running to 19 April 2026 and extended evening hours each Friday.

Tickets: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/rose-wylie