Foreword
We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts for the third year with this exhibition of paintings and drawings by Rose Wylie. Rose is the first female artist in the collaboration, and we felt she represented a strong voice in contemporary art which fits so well with our ambitious world-class exhibition series at Windsor. I have long admired the creative energy in Rose’s work, and after seeing exhibitions devoted to her output for some years, I was delighted to visit her in her studio in the English countryside while we worked on this exhibition. When you see the scale of her work in situ it is most impressive. She cuts her canvas to the maximum dimensions of her walls, and manoeuvres the panels in this enclosed space on the first floor of an ancient house, to create multiple-panel paintings that you will see in this exhibition and beyond. She has barely any assistance, and her work, and her home, felt to me like one and the same. It was a great pleasure to meet her there and discuss her inspirations, and what interests her about painting and drawing. Tim Marlow, artistic director of the Royal Academy, visited Rose at her studio too, and the interview they conducted there not only features in this book, but also in a film which will be shown during the exhibition. Russell Tovey, art collector, actor and writer, has contributed an essay to this catalogue during his busy filming schedule and presents a very personal insight and response to this great artist. I was particularly grateful that he was able to write for us, and would like to thank him for this engaging piece. I would also like to thank Christopher Le Brun, the outgoing President of the Royal Academy with whom I have worked closely on this series of exhibitions as well as his fine exhibition we celebrated in 2017. The exhibition was curated by Jari-Juhani Lager who has represented Rose for many years, and whose thoughtful insights can also be found within this catalogue. A large team has to work together to bring about an exhibition at this level and I would like to extend thanks to my team at Windsor, particularly Jane Smalley, and in London to staff at the Royal Academy and David Zwirner Gallery, and to Nicola Togneri, our exhibition series coordinator. My final thoughts must go to Rose, whom I thank most warmly for the work we are fortunate enough to be exhibiting, and for her dedication and commitment to this book and our film, which we are so delighted to be able to enjoy at Windsor.
The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, CM, CVO, OOnt
Elizabeth and Henry with Birds, 2013 (detail)
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Foreword
We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts for the third year with this exhibition of paintings and drawings by Rose Wylie. Rose is the first female artist in the collaboration, and we felt she represented a strong voice in contemporary art which fits so well with our ambitious world-class exhibition series at Windsor. I have long admired the creative energy in Rose’s work, and after seeing exhibitions devoted to her output for some years, I was delighted to visit her in her studio in the English countryside while we worked on this exhibition. When you see the scale of her work in situ it is most impressive. She cuts her canvas to the maximum dimensions of her walls, and manoeuvres the panels in this enclosed space on the first floor of an ancient house, to create multiple-panel paintings that you will see in this exhibition and beyond. She has barely any assistance, and her work, and her home, felt to me like one and the same. It was a great pleasure to meet her there and discuss her inspirations, and what interests her about painting and drawing. Tim Marlow, artistic director of the Royal Academy, visited Rose at her studio too, and the interview they conducted there not only features in this book, but also in a film which will be shown during the exhibition. Russell Tovey, art collector, actor and writer, has contributed an essay to this catalogue during his busy filming schedule and presents a very personal insight and response to this great artist. I was particularly grateful that he was able to write for us, and would like to thank him for this engaging piece. I would also like to thank Christopher Le Brun, the outgoing President of the Royal Academy with whom I have worked closely on this series of exhibitions as well as his fine exhibition we celebrated in 2017. The exhibition was curated by Jari-Juhani Lager who has represented Rose for many years, and whose thoughtful insights can also be found within this catalogue. A large team has to work together to bring about an exhibition at this level and I would like to extend thanks to my team at Windsor, particularly Jane Smalley, and in London to staff at the Royal Academy and David Zwirner Gallery, and to Nicola Togneri, our exhibition series coordinator. My final thoughts must go to Rose, whom I thank most warmly for the work we are fortunate enough to be exhibiting, and for her dedication and commitment to this book and our film, which we are so delighted to be able to enjoy at Windsor.
The Hon. Hilary M. Weston, CM, CVO, OOnt
Elizabeth and Henry with Birds, 2013 (detail)
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The Royal Academy curatorial partnership with The Gallery at Windsor
This exhibition by Rose Wylie marks the last in a series of three exhibitions conceived as a collaboration between Hilary Weston, creative director of The Gallery at Windsor, Tim Marlow, the outgoing artistic director of the Royal Academy, and myself, the now former President of the Royal Academy. I stepped down in December 2019 after eight years in the role. The series presents some of our leading Royal Academicians. Grayson Perry was the first artist to exhibit, Sir Michael CraigMartin was the second and we now have Rose Wylie who has been an Academician since December 2014, elected at the age of eighty in justified recognition of a lifetime’s achievement. Rose has been the subject of renewed critical attention in recent years, with major presentations including Tate Modern and the Serpentine Gallery in London and solo and group exhibitions worldwide. We are particularly pleased that she was able to do this exhibition at Windsor with the Royal Academy given the demands on her work and time. This is her first solo institutional exhibition in the United States, which is sure to be very well received in Florida and beyond. In her long lifetime as a painter she has developed an entirely personal visual language, which may at first seem easily accessible – you will see Snow White and wedding scenes as well as castles, birds and memorials – but her painterly skill and judgement shows a sophistication, experience and wit that transcends the subject matter and has been widely recognised by her professional peers. Here at Windsor we present an exhibition full of invention, freshness and candour, including drawings to give a direct insight into Rose’s inimitable practice. We at the Royal Academy are proud of the collaboration with Windsor, and have enjoyed the exchange of ideas, visitors, educational programming and of course the exhibitions. Although we are situated in London, and fortunate to have Her Majesty the Queen as our patron, we have always been international in our outlook. Opportunities to exhibit the work of our members, the Academicians, and to share the story of our institution though series such as these are characteristic of our imaginative programming. We very much hope that all those of you who see this show in Vero Beach will be sufficiently impressed and intrigued to visit us at our home in Burlington House in London.
Christopher Le Brun PPRA
Elizabeth and Henry with Birds, 2013 (detail)
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The Royal Academy curatorial partnership with The Gallery at Windsor
This exhibition by Rose Wylie marks the last in a series of three exhibitions conceived as a collaboration between Hilary Weston, creative director of The Gallery at Windsor, Tim Marlow, the outgoing artistic director of the Royal Academy, and myself, the now former President of the Royal Academy. I stepped down in December 2019 after eight years in the role. The series presents some of our leading Royal Academicians. Grayson Perry was the first artist to exhibit, Sir Michael CraigMartin was the second and we now have Rose Wylie who has been an Academician since December 2014, elected at the age of eighty in justified recognition of a lifetime’s achievement. Rose has been the subject of renewed critical attention in recent years, with major presentations including Tate Modern and the Serpentine Gallery in London and solo and group exhibitions worldwide. We are particularly pleased that she was able to do this exhibition at Windsor with the Royal Academy given the demands on her work and time. This is her first solo institutional exhibition in the United States, which is sure to be very well received in Florida and beyond. In her long lifetime as a painter she has developed an entirely personal visual language, which may at first seem easily accessible – you will see Snow White and wedding scenes as well as castles, birds and memorials – but her painterly skill and judgement shows a sophistication, experience and wit that transcends the subject matter and has been widely recognised by her professional peers. Here at Windsor we present an exhibition full of invention, freshness and candour, including drawings to give a direct insight into Rose’s inimitable practice. We at the Royal Academy are proud of the collaboration with Windsor, and have enjoyed the exchange of ideas, visitors, educational programming and of course the exhibitions. Although we are situated in London, and fortunate to have Her Majesty the Queen as our patron, we have always been international in our outlook. Opportunities to exhibit the work of our members, the Academicians, and to share the story of our institution though series such as these are characteristic of our imaginative programming. We very much hope that all those of you who see this show in Vero Beach will be sufficiently impressed and intrigued to visit us at our home in Burlington House in London.
Christopher Le Brun PPRA
Elizabeth and Henry with Birds, 2013 (detail)
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The Rose Wylie Narrative Russell Tovey
Choco Leibnitz, 2006 Oil on canvas Four parts, overall: 144 ¼ × 120 ¼ in. (366 × 305 cm)
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Squeezing into the studio of Rose Wylie is like being transported into a nest. A bedding of newspapers lines the floors; paintdaubed walls are hung with large, unstretched, unprimed raw canvases, either in a current state of arrival or patient in anticipation for what their story may be. Street-facing windows let the light in from the outside world, but it is controlled, shining through speckled white flecks, not enough to disrupt the real happenings that this studio cultivates, inside. I came to the work of Rose Wylie almost ten years ago, at a small artist-run gallery space in East London, called Transition Gallery. The work Rose had chosen to show was joyful, humorous and, in an almost innocent way, beautiful. What I found fundamentally clear was that this artist’s voice was fresh. The work was proud and brave. It knew what it was and what it wanted to be, and that confidence grabbed my attention immediately. I recall asking how old this artist was at the time, to be told that she was nearing her eighties. This information floored me, it seemed so incongruent that this work, which has an almost aggressively youthful energy twinned with a smart, ironic, millennial humour, could belong to an artist at this point in her career. (Rose is loath to have her age commented on in relation to her practice, so I must apologise here, but highlight that it just goes to show how completely extraordinary she is.) Borrowing threads from observation and popular culture, Rose amalgamates scenes for a carnival of creatures to play in, every piece expanding across the wall like a woven tapestry, continuing beyond sight like the Bayeux itself, a tour de force from an inspired dramaturg. The works hum with life as constant moving scenes of action, the artist choosing to use dashes of two or three lines to let us know where her characters are animate. Rose directs us to notice what she wants us to notice, creating a dialogue between her players, an actual script, written across the works, allowing her characters’ inner monologues to be expressed freely. Her writing is sometimes clear, most times illegible, often drifting carefree across the canvas and into the ether, half-finished in swirly calligraphic fonts, allowing our own assumptions to be projected. At first glance, Rose’s painting style disarms you. She allows herself a freedom, in the same way that a child rarely considers the impossibilities of drafting their parents into the same domestic scene as say Jesus Christ or Beyoncé. Using references that are so much a part of our modern popular culture, she creates images that are curiously identifiable. Inspirations come from everywhere: the gossip column of a magazine, the party pages of a free newspaper, the birds outside the window, the view from the train. Antagonists and protagonists are snatched from any source, undefined by any particular decade. The whole world is her reference point and all are invited to perform in her drama. Rose is the big-time Broadway producer, with an eye for the unexpected cast announcement.
The Rose Wylie Narrative Russell Tovey
Choco Leibnitz, 2006 Oil on canvas Four parts, overall: 144 ¼ × 120 ¼ in. (366 × 305 cm)
13
Squeezing into the studio of Rose Wylie is like being transported into a nest. A bedding of newspapers lines the floors; paintdaubed walls are hung with large, unstretched, unprimed raw canvases, either in a current state of arrival or patient in anticipation for what their story may be. Street-facing windows let the light in from the outside world, but it is controlled, shining through speckled white flecks, not enough to disrupt the real happenings that this studio cultivates, inside. I came to the work of Rose Wylie almost ten years ago, at a small artist-run gallery space in East London, called Transition Gallery. The work Rose had chosen to show was joyful, humorous and, in an almost innocent way, beautiful. What I found fundamentally clear was that this artist’s voice was fresh. The work was proud and brave. It knew what it was and what it wanted to be, and that confidence grabbed my attention immediately. I recall asking how old this artist was at the time, to be told that she was nearing her eighties. This information floored me, it seemed so incongruent that this work, which has an almost aggressively youthful energy twinned with a smart, ironic, millennial humour, could belong to an artist at this point in her career. (Rose is loath to have her age commented on in relation to her practice, so I must apologise here, but highlight that it just goes to show how completely extraordinary she is.) Borrowing threads from observation and popular culture, Rose amalgamates scenes for a carnival of creatures to play in, every piece expanding across the wall like a woven tapestry, continuing beyond sight like the Bayeux itself, a tour de force from an inspired dramaturg. The works hum with life as constant moving scenes of action, the artist choosing to use dashes of two or three lines to let us know where her characters are animate. Rose directs us to notice what she wants us to notice, creating a dialogue between her players, an actual script, written across the works, allowing her characters’ inner monologues to be expressed freely. Her writing is sometimes clear, most times illegible, often drifting carefree across the canvas and into the ether, half-finished in swirly calligraphic fonts, allowing our own assumptions to be projected. At first glance, Rose’s painting style disarms you. She allows herself a freedom, in the same way that a child rarely considers the impossibilities of drafting their parents into the same domestic scene as say Jesus Christ or Beyoncé. Using references that are so much a part of our modern popular culture, she creates images that are curiously identifiable. Inspirations come from everywhere: the gossip column of a magazine, the party pages of a free newspaper, the birds outside the window, the view from the train. Antagonists and protagonists are snatched from any source, undefined by any particular decade. The whole world is her reference point and all are invited to perform in her drama. Rose is the big-time Broadway producer, with an eye for the unexpected cast announcement.
I am an actor and – to pop-psychoanalyse for a beat – I would hazard a guess that this is why I struck a deep connection to the character-driven world that Rose creates. It is sheer theatricality, it’s Shakespearean, the canvas is her stage, the pros-arch holds her players, ranging from the lead to the peripheral, all holding importance and value within her scene. Her cast have a mission to affect whoever or whatever it is they are sharing their canvas with, their scene partners. They are always in action, whether in view on stage or waiting patiently in the wings. I continued to follow the work of Rose as she appeared in group shows up and down the country, culminating in a gamechanging solo display at Tate Britain in 2013, beautifully curated by Rose’s number one supporter, Clarrie Wallis, and her team, which in turn solidified my Wylie love.1 Huge canvases sprawled across the walls, taking over the space with a knowing, confident smile. Many were composed of multiple panels, juxtaposing history with humour; one continued around the corner of the room, hugging the space. In the painting Queen of Sheba & JT (2012), the Queen of Sheba walks towards us as she lifts up her skirts to reveal her cloven hooves, all the while the profile of controversial premiership footballer John Terry looms large in the foreground, witnessing her arrival. John Terry is cast in the role of King Solomon, to signify his wealth and power, a device that I think in Rose’s mind seamlessly unites these two figures, the ancient biblical Hebrew queen and the infamous soccer star. Crazy beautiful free associations, unbiased and without rules as to who, where or when, are the fundamentals of Rose’s work. A cast of strangers and objects loosely choreographed into performative motifs. We find her characters in totally unexpected situations, guided by an artist passionately inspired by a love of cinema. Scenes framed like movie stills are mined again and again for the perfect shot from a multitude of angles – from the extreme close-up to the faraway wide. Her works live on the surface, but they are never flat. A cropped-in mouth of a girl enjoying a chocolate biscuit (Choco Leibnitz, 2006; p.12) digests next to a twisted echo of Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds (Inglorious Basterds ( film notes)
(Thanks to Quentin Tarantino; Nazi Regalia; Giovanni di Paolo), 2010; p.16). A personal memory mixes in with a back-page sports
listing. It is Rose’s use of collage that sets her apart. Rarely are we allowed to see into an artist's working, to see their ‘mistakes’. We are normally presented with a polished final piece, choices made, all original sketching and planning deemed invisible, but Rose exposes us to her decisions, right up to the point of release, a celebration of her process. Paper is laid over paper, canvas over canvas, sections crafted and reworked continuously, over and 1 BP Spotlight: Rose Wylie, Tate Britain, London, 14 May – 23 September 2013
over, until satisfaction is found. She doesn’t strive for perfection, but for ‘perfect enough’. To me this is fascinating. As actors under a director’s gaze, we are crafted and moulded, nudged and prodded, led to a place where we feel like our characters have made the strongest and most truthful decision. A choice. With Rose we are witnessing a director at work, as she sensitively critiques her cast, making a gamble as to how their final captured performance will turn out. We see the final edit, but also the process: we are exposed to what the ‘actor’ worked through underneath, to get there, take after take. I have always wondered what a Wylie cartoon would look like, an animation of her world. Surely this is something that we need? Rose’s works are rarely obviously politically laden. (She once considered using the ear of Margaret Thatcher as a reference match for her daughter’s ear, that’s as far as it goes.) They are not full of cryptic messaging for future generations to decode: they exist as free-flowing monuments, reimagined from an infinite well of memory, the inexhaustible resource of the internet, and what she sees around her. The energy harnessed in her paintings and drawings is Pop art in its purest form. Seemingly effortless, she shakes paint-splattered hands with ancient art, early Renaissance, Warhol, Basquiat, Haring and Lichtenstein, and emerging cultures, yet she propels us forward, encouraging us on with her very own special form of magic. Her characters, whether members of her family, icons of popular culture, fantastical beings, sports personalities or indeed herself, always appear as we least expect, in profile or close-up, with cropped sections of clothing, eyelashes, lips, a particular hairstyle taking centre stage. As she seeks out the layers of a performance, she will zoom in and focus on the nuance, a subtlety; something that we might normally take for granted, Rose will elevate. It’s an invitation to consider what it is to look at art. The works at The Gallery at Windsor, Florida, might seem to hark back to ‘simpler times’, but consider the title. Princes and princesses, castles and dragons, suits of armour. Then there is the flawless heroine from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), performing various domestic chores, something to escape from, but how? Surely not through marriage. Rose vividly remembers seeing the film aged four, and being terrified by it. She has often returned to Snow White, an ancient tale that has been updated over time, and, given the destination of this new body of work, the fact that the dominant protagonist here is from Disney’s first feature-length animation doesn’t feel like chance. Most people in the UK, including myself, might not know that there is a second place in the world called Windsor, as well as the one by the River Thames on the outskirts of London, the location of a recent, extraordinary royal wedding. It’s not far
Queen of Sheba & JT, 2012 Oil on canvas Two parts, overall: 71 ¾ × 134 ⅔ in. (182 × 342 cm)
14
15
I am an actor and – to pop-psychoanalyse for a beat – I would hazard a guess that this is why I struck a deep connection to the character-driven world that Rose creates. It is sheer theatricality, it’s Shakespearean, the canvas is her stage, the pros-arch holds her players, ranging from the lead to the peripheral, all holding importance and value within her scene. Her cast have a mission to affect whoever or whatever it is they are sharing their canvas with, their scene partners. They are always in action, whether in view on stage or waiting patiently in the wings. I continued to follow the work of Rose as she appeared in group shows up and down the country, culminating in a gamechanging solo display at Tate Britain in 2013, beautifully curated by Rose’s number one supporter, Clarrie Wallis, and her team, which in turn solidified my Wylie love.1 Huge canvases sprawled across the walls, taking over the space with a knowing, confident smile. Many were composed of multiple panels, juxtaposing history with humour; one continued around the corner of the room, hugging the space. In the painting Queen of Sheba & JT (2012), the Queen of Sheba walks towards us as she lifts up her skirts to reveal her cloven hooves, all the while the profile of controversial premiership footballer John Terry looms large in the foreground, witnessing her arrival. John Terry is cast in the role of King Solomon, to signify his wealth and power, a device that I think in Rose’s mind seamlessly unites these two figures, the ancient biblical Hebrew queen and the infamous soccer star. Crazy beautiful free associations, unbiased and without rules as to who, where or when, are the fundamentals of Rose’s work. A cast of strangers and objects loosely choreographed into performative motifs. We find her characters in totally unexpected situations, guided by an artist passionately inspired by a love of cinema. Scenes framed like movie stills are mined again and again for the perfect shot from a multitude of angles – from the extreme close-up to the faraway wide. Her works live on the surface, but they are never flat. A cropped-in mouth of a girl enjoying a chocolate biscuit (Choco Leibnitz, 2006; p.12) digests next to a twisted echo of Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds (Inglorious Basterds ( film notes)
(Thanks to Quentin Tarantino; Nazi Regalia; Giovanni di Paolo), 2010; p.16). A personal memory mixes in with a back-page sports
listing. It is Rose’s use of collage that sets her apart. Rarely are we allowed to see into an artist's working, to see their ‘mistakes’. We are normally presented with a polished final piece, choices made, all original sketching and planning deemed invisible, but Rose exposes us to her decisions, right up to the point of release, a celebration of her process. Paper is laid over paper, canvas over canvas, sections crafted and reworked continuously, over and 1 BP Spotlight: Rose Wylie, Tate Britain, London, 14 May – 23 September 2013
over, until satisfaction is found. She doesn’t strive for perfection, but for ‘perfect enough’. To me this is fascinating. As actors under a director’s gaze, we are crafted and moulded, nudged and prodded, led to a place where we feel like our characters have made the strongest and most truthful decision. A choice. With Rose we are witnessing a director at work, as she sensitively critiques her cast, making a gamble as to how their final captured performance will turn out. We see the final edit, but also the process: we are exposed to what the ‘actor’ worked through underneath, to get there, take after take. I have always wondered what a Wylie cartoon would look like, an animation of her world. Surely this is something that we need? Rose’s works are rarely obviously politically laden. (She once considered using the ear of Margaret Thatcher as a reference match for her daughter’s ear, that’s as far as it goes.) They are not full of cryptic messaging for future generations to decode: they exist as free-flowing monuments, reimagined from an infinite well of memory, the inexhaustible resource of the internet, and what she sees around her. The energy harnessed in her paintings and drawings is Pop art in its purest form. Seemingly effortless, she shakes paint-splattered hands with ancient art, early Renaissance, Warhol, Basquiat, Haring and Lichtenstein, and emerging cultures, yet she propels us forward, encouraging us on with her very own special form of magic. Her characters, whether members of her family, icons of popular culture, fantastical beings, sports personalities or indeed herself, always appear as we least expect, in profile or close-up, with cropped sections of clothing, eyelashes, lips, a particular hairstyle taking centre stage. As she seeks out the layers of a performance, she will zoom in and focus on the nuance, a subtlety; something that we might normally take for granted, Rose will elevate. It’s an invitation to consider what it is to look at art. The works at The Gallery at Windsor, Florida, might seem to hark back to ‘simpler times’, but consider the title. Princes and princesses, castles and dragons, suits of armour. Then there is the flawless heroine from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), performing various domestic chores, something to escape from, but how? Surely not through marriage. Rose vividly remembers seeing the film aged four, and being terrified by it. She has often returned to Snow White, an ancient tale that has been updated over time, and, given the destination of this new body of work, the fact that the dominant protagonist here is from Disney’s first feature-length animation doesn’t feel like chance. Most people in the UK, including myself, might not know that there is a second place in the world called Windsor, as well as the one by the River Thames on the outskirts of London, the location of a recent, extraordinary royal wedding. It’s not far
Queen of Sheba & JT, 2012 Oil on canvas Two parts, overall: 71 ¾ × 134 ⅔ in. (182 × 342 cm)
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15
from Orlando, Florida – the home of Walt Disney himself and the Magic Kingdom theme park. In true Wylie fashion, the royal borough cuddles up to Florida’s Windsor. Rose focuses on the lyrics from the title tune of Snow White, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’. The song creates a warm feeling, a longing, but after going through the Wylie filtering system, there is a vibration between images of a royal wedding, Disney dreams, and feminist positions. Some would say it is the perfect storm. The works in the exhibition Let it Settle seem to summon a golden age of Hollywood glamour. Exploring the emotion of nostalgia on the canvas, Rose destabilises our sense of ‘simpler times’, when the intake of information was vastly limited compared to now. She plays with the fairy tale archetype to create a hybrid reality, and encourage reinterpretation. One of the first times I visited Rose in her studio in Kent was to discuss her life and work for my art podcast, Talk Art. On the wall was a series of six self-portraits, each depicting Rose in a black, vase-shaped dress, twirling around with the supposed freedom of a Disney heroine gaily waltzing on their wedding night, as the credits roll, the end of the feature. The dress – specifically a Frank Usher couture gown which I learned was a gift Rose bought for herself as a teenager, with money acquired by looking after her sister post-childbirth. But in reality the gown was never to be worn; without the right occasion, without an invitation to fulfil its potential, it hung impotent and lonely in a wardrobe for the rest of its time. But in the series Drab Ant Work – RW in evening dress (2019), Rose can re-enact history, albeit one that didn’t happen, with a figment of imagination allowing the construction of her dreams as a young woman to play out now in the role that she never had the chance to play then. In this alternative happy ending, she links the work with prehistoric imagery, fifteenth-century alchemy bottles and personal history; each painting shows a different view of her, a different angle on the dress, like feverish paparazzi shots of the belle of the ball, yet these are paintings of great restraint. Rose appears solo in all the images. There is no space for a prince, or perhaps no need. The dress doesn’t call for her prince; it is an occasion in itself. The more you see the work of Rose Wylie, the better you realise that the real beauty lies in the way it is painted, and its disavowal of hierarchy. A chocolate biscuit or a duck, an old man on a park bench, a palm tree, a castle: each is treated with the same importance. A celebration of the mundane, of the ignored, of the famous, of the highbrow, of the lowbrow, of the fantastic. Every distilled subject is breathed into life with the same paintbrush and contained within her equal-footed world. Wylies bring so much joy to their viewers – whatever age, gender, religion, sexual preference, we can all find a bit of ourselves there. Russell Tovey is a UK-based actor, writer, podcaster, benefactor, patron and collector.
Inglorious Basterds (film notes) (Thanks to Quentin Tarantino; Nazi Regalia; Giovanni di Paolo), 2010
Drab Ant Work – RW in evening dress, 2019 (detail) Oil on canvas Six parts, each: 71 ⅝ × 58 ⅝ in. (182 × 149 cm)
Oil on canvas Two parts, overall: 71 ¼ × 133 ⅛ in. (181 × 338 cm)
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from Orlando, Florida – the home of Walt Disney himself and the Magic Kingdom theme park. In true Wylie fashion, the royal borough cuddles up to Florida’s Windsor. Rose focuses on the lyrics from the title tune of Snow White, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’. The song creates a warm feeling, a longing, but after going through the Wylie filtering system, there is a vibration between images of a royal wedding, Disney dreams, and feminist positions. Some would say it is the perfect storm. The works in the exhibition Let it Settle seem to summon a golden age of Hollywood glamour. Exploring the emotion of nostalgia on the canvas, Rose destabilises our sense of ‘simpler times’, when the intake of information was vastly limited compared to now. She plays with the fairy tale archetype to create a hybrid reality, and encourage reinterpretation. One of the first times I visited Rose in her studio in Kent was to discuss her life and work for my art podcast, Talk Art. On the wall was a series of six self-portraits, each depicting Rose in a black, vase-shaped dress, twirling around with the supposed freedom of a Disney heroine gaily waltzing on their wedding night, as the credits roll, the end of the feature. The dress – specifically a Frank Usher couture gown which I learned was a gift Rose bought for herself as a teenager, with money acquired by looking after her sister post-childbirth. But in reality the gown was never to be worn; without the right occasion, without an invitation to fulfil its potential, it hung impotent and lonely in a wardrobe for the rest of its time. But in the series Drab Ant Work – RW in evening dress (2019), Rose can re-enact history, albeit one that didn’t happen, with a figment of imagination allowing the construction of her dreams as a young woman to play out now in the role that she never had the chance to play then. In this alternative happy ending, she links the work with prehistoric imagery, fifteenth-century alchemy bottles and personal history; each painting shows a different view of her, a different angle on the dress, like feverish paparazzi shots of the belle of the ball, yet these are paintings of great restraint. Rose appears solo in all the images. There is no space for a prince, or perhaps no need. The dress doesn’t call for her prince; it is an occasion in itself. The more you see the work of Rose Wylie, the better you realise that the real beauty lies in the way it is painted, and its disavowal of hierarchy. A chocolate biscuit or a duck, an old man on a park bench, a palm tree, a castle: each is treated with the same importance. A celebration of the mundane, of the ignored, of the famous, of the highbrow, of the lowbrow, of the fantastic. Every distilled subject is breathed into life with the same paintbrush and contained within her equal-footed world. Wylies bring so much joy to their viewers – whatever age, gender, religion, sexual preference, we can all find a bit of ourselves there. Russell Tovey is a UK-based actor, writer, podcaster, benefactor, patron and collector.
Inglorious Basterds (film notes) (Thanks to Quentin Tarantino; Nazi Regalia; Giovanni di Paolo), 2010
Drab Ant Work – RW in evening dress, 2019 (detail) Oil on canvas Six parts, each: 71 ⅝ × 58 ⅝ in. (182 × 149 cm)
Oil on canvas Two parts, overall: 71 ¼ × 133 ⅛ in. (181 × 338 cm)
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Rose Wylie in Conversation with Tim Marlow
Tim Marlow: Rose, this is the first time I’ve visited your studio and although I’ve seen it filmed, I’m overwhelmed. I mean I love it, but it’s like we’re in a cocoon of creative chaos. I’m curious as to how systematic your work is, because in the exhibition Let it Settle at The Gallery at Windsor there are various themes. Do you see your work in coherent bodies, or is everything a microcosmic reflection of the chaos around us? Rose Wylie: I don’t see chaos. I see it as liberation. As a small child, you’re told to put stuff away, put tops on bottles. It’s a defiant act on my part not to do what you’re told. I don’t like imposed art structures, and neither do I like imposition of any kind, or tyranny, or invasion of privacy, or anything. I like people to be what they are. This environment, this studio, it’s like this because I don’t put things away. This is who you are. It is, yes. And it flows into the house. I’m a stacker and a piler. I file chronologically, I don’t do filing systems. And you work simultaneously on canvases and paper? I do. The studio and the house are full of bits of paper but normally it’s just oil paintings in here. The process, which is an interesting one, starts with the canvases on the floor and you then mop the glue and primer onto them? I do, with a broom. Yes, that’s quite right. I have another studio downstairs – bigger, more clear, more organised – where the rabbit-skin glue is put on with a broom on the floor. No primer. Then the canvases are stapled on the walls here, and you start painting? Yes. There are so many different sources that you have drawn on over your career. In the work at Windsor, I can see heraldry, history, Westminster Abbey, David Hockney, Snow White, Sion House. That’s just off the top of my head. Is there a starting point for an individual painting or is it always this amalgamation of different images from the start in your mind? The starting point of the large painting with Rochester Castle was in fact when art critic Laura Cumming put a picture of Robert Peake, the seventeenth-century English painter, in The Observer. The colours were great: green with a pink blob in the middle. And I just thought, that’s rather something. I worked from Robert Peake at that point, did some drawings of costume of the time; the shape is more sculptural, more
Rose Wylie in her studio, 2018
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Rose Wylie in Conversation with Tim Marlow
Tim Marlow: Rose, this is the first time I’ve visited your studio and although I’ve seen it filmed, I’m overwhelmed. I mean I love it, but it’s like we’re in a cocoon of creative chaos. I’m curious as to how systematic your work is, because in the exhibition Let it Settle at The Gallery at Windsor there are various themes. Do you see your work in coherent bodies, or is everything a microcosmic reflection of the chaos around us? Rose Wylie: I don’t see chaos. I see it as liberation. As a small child, you’re told to put stuff away, put tops on bottles. It’s a defiant act on my part not to do what you’re told. I don’t like imposed art structures, and neither do I like imposition of any kind, or tyranny, or invasion of privacy, or anything. I like people to be what they are. This environment, this studio, it’s like this because I don’t put things away. This is who you are. It is, yes. And it flows into the house. I’m a stacker and a piler. I file chronologically, I don’t do filing systems. And you work simultaneously on canvases and paper? I do. The studio and the house are full of bits of paper but normally it’s just oil paintings in here. The process, which is an interesting one, starts with the canvases on the floor and you then mop the glue and primer onto them? I do, with a broom. Yes, that’s quite right. I have another studio downstairs – bigger, more clear, more organised – where the rabbit-skin glue is put on with a broom on the floor. No primer. Then the canvases are stapled on the walls here, and you start painting? Yes. There are so many different sources that you have drawn on over your career. In the work at Windsor, I can see heraldry, history, Westminster Abbey, David Hockney, Snow White, Sion House. That’s just off the top of my head. Is there a starting point for an individual painting or is it always this amalgamation of different images from the start in your mind? The starting point of the large painting with Rochester Castle was in fact when art critic Laura Cumming put a picture of Robert Peake, the seventeenth-century English painter, in The Observer. The colours were great: green with a pink blob in the middle. And I just thought, that’s rather something. I worked from Robert Peake at that point, did some drawings of costume of the time; the shape is more sculptural, more
Rose Wylie in her studio, 2018
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First published in 2020 by Windsor Press 3125 Windsor Boulevard Vero Beach, Florida 32963 Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House Piccadilly London w1j 0bd
Catalogue © Windsor Press, Vero Beach / Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2020 Any copy of this book issued by the publisher is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.
On the occasion of the exhibition Rose Wylie: Let it Settle 28 January – 30 April 2020 The Gallery at Windsor 3125 Windsor Boulevard Vero Beach, Florida 32963 www.windsorflorida.com/gallery
All works courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, except Elizabeth and Henry with Birds courtesy of the artist, Choi&Lager and David Zwirner; Snowwhite (2) One Day her Prince Will Come loaned by Hilary and Galen Weston; Snowwhite (3) with Duster loaned by a private collector Photography credits Cover, pp.2–3, 8, 11, 12, 26, 29, 31, 32–3, 34–5, 37, 38–9, 42–3, 44, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 58–9: Jack Hems pp.12, 15, 16: Soon-Hak Kwon p.18: Joe McGorty ‘The Rose Wylie Narrative’ © Russell Tovey, ‘Rose Wylie in Conversation with Tim Marlow’ © Tim Marlow and Rose Wylie, 2020 Copy editing: Dorothy Feaver Designed by Mark Thomson Set in Questa Sans and Lexicon Printed in Belgium by die Keure in an edition of 1,000 copies
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978–1–912520–51–0 Distributed outside the United States and Canada by ACC Art Books Ltd, Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk ip12 4sd Distributed in the United States and Canada by ARTBOOK | D.A.P., 155 Sixth Avenue, New York ny 10013 pp.2–3, 58–9: Elizabeth and Henry with Birds, 2013 (detail)
The Gallery at Windsor Creative Director: The Hon. Hilary M. Weston Marketing Director: Jane Smalley Private Secretary to the Hon. Hilary M. Weston: Louise Larlee Marketing Assistant: Pat Palmer Royal Academy of Arts, London Series Curators: Christopher Le Brun PPRA and Tim Marlow, Artistic Director Exhibition series coordinator: Nicola Togneri Exhibition curators: Jari-Juhani Lager and Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal David Zwirner Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal Sara Chan Marta Barinay