Rose Hilton

Rose Hilton, née Phipps, was a British painter based in Cornwall. Born in Kent in 1931, she studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where she was awarded both the Life Drawing and Painting prize and the Abbey Minor Scholarship to study in Rome.

After returning to London, she began teaching art and, in the late 1950s, met the prominent abstract artist Roger Hilton, whom she later married. Roger, who died in 1975 at the age of 63, was by then widely regarded—alongside figures such as Sir Terry Frost and Patrick Heron—as a key contributor to post-1950s British art. Although during their marriage he insisted that Rose take a back seat to his artistic pursuits, his influence ultimately played a role in her emergence as a powerful colourist in her own right. Roger’s belief in the transformative powers of alcohol often left Rose with time and space to paint in secret. As she recalled: “Roger would often go off drinking with Sydney [Graham, the poet]. When he was gone and with the boys at school, I would paint.”

After his death, Rose began painting with renewed energy and freedom.

In 1977, she held her first solo exhibition at Newlyn Art Gallery. Her post-impressionist, figurative style gained widespread popularity, drawing frequent comparisons to the French Nabi painter Pierre Bonnard and showing clear influence from Henri Matisse. In 2008, a major retrospective of her work was staged at Tate St Ives.