Rose Wylie

Critical text

Rose Wylie (b. 1934, Kent) became well known through her large-scale paintings on unprimed canvas, which defy clear stylistic categorization, oscillating between surreal pop and wild punk. She draws inspiration from popular culture, news stories, and everyday life, humorously and sometimes critically commenting on contemporary issues. Her paintings recall children’s art, Art Brut, or Bad Painting. Yet, upon closer inspection, one finds art historical and political references. She clarifies that her subjects, often seen as celebrities, are simply figures that appear in everyday media. In this series of works on paper — “Girl Now Meets Girl Then” —, Wylie was inspired by self-portraits drawn from her memory, crude illustrations of midcentury youth, and debutante styles that recall the artist’s own coming of age. Air mail postage, fields of color, and scrawls of the artist’s handwriting punctuate the compositions of girls on the verge of womanhood, often costumed in organza balloon dresses, primrose bathers, cardigans, and other articles of clothing in vogue in the 1940s and 1950s. Unexpectedly, Wylie was discovered by the art world at the age of 80, achieving significant success since then.

Text by Heike Munder

The artist’s voice

Art and poetry have similarities. You can extend from what you do in poetry to understand what you might do as a visual artist. Sometimes only the ‘right’ word will work: it must have the right rhythm and ‘feel’.