Born in Kent and raised in a strict Plymouth Brethren family, Rose Hilton's first artistic inspiration came from Bible illustrations and the religious pictures that hung on the walls of her home.
"We had an illustrated Bible and we didn't really have many pictures on the wall that weren't religious," she says. "I was always drawn to them. I loved those religious pictures – I think that's where it started really."
Rose Hilton attended the Royal College of Art in London, despite her parents' disapproval. Here she excelled at draughtsmanship and mixed with the likes of Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, and Bridget Riley. She won a scholarship to Rome, and later qualified as a teacher.
A few years after graduating, she met and fell for the artist Roger Hilton, an imposing talent but notoriously difficult character who asserted that there was only room for one artist in their relationship. As a result, Rose Hilton painted only very infrequently during their marriage, and devoted herself to being a wife and mother. In 1965 the couple and their young family moved to a cottage on Bottalack Moor in the far west of Cornwall, where Roger Hilton continued to paint while Rose Hilton raised their young sons and looked after the home.
So discouraged from pursuing her own artistic practice during her husband's lifetime, Rose Hilton picked up her brushes again after his death in 1975. In 1977 she had her first solo show at Newlyn Art Gallery, and from 1989 she began showing regularly with Messum’s gallery in London. She was recognised with a retrospective show at Tate St Ives in 2008.
