Rose Wylie, art world pioneer at 91: ‘Success, if it comes earlier, can entrap you a bit’
Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter One evening this week, a taxi took Rose Wylie to the Royal Academy of Arts, but it dropped her off round the back. “I said, ‘this isn’t right. I want to go to the front’. The driver was surprised,” she tells me. The reason? The 91-year-old painter wanted to see the banner bearing her name that currently hangs across the front of the building, where her work is on show in a major exhibition. “I wanted to see it lit up,” she says, with a wry laugh. “I love it.” The response to The Picture Comes First, which is full of exuberant canvases several feet high – and several times the size of their minute nonagenarian creator – has been glowing. “Guaranteed to leave you in a better mood than when you arrived,” said Time Out. “There won’t be a more …

