Rose Wylie's 'Bad Painting' at the Royal Academy: A Review

J.J. Charlesworth reviews Rose Wylie's exhibition 'The Picture Comes First' at the Royal Academy in London, running from 28 February to 19 April 2026. The 91-year-old English painter, who returned to art in the late 1980s after raising children, presents large-scale canvases with deliberately childish, amateurish style. Works like 'Wing Tips and Blue Doodlebug' (2022–23) depict childhood WWII memories with crude brushwork and schematic diagrams. Other paintings reference films such as Quentin Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' and 'Inglourious Basterds', or show women in ballgowns based on Nicole Kidman. Charlesworth critiques Wylie's rejection of technical mastery, noting her shift from earlier works like 'The Well Cooked Omelette' (1989) to flatter, cartoonish styles. He finds the later, huge canvases with baby-book silhouettes oppressive, arguing that scale compensates for minimal content.