| Article number: | 0719545323 |
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Beryl Cook a British naive painter, She took up painting seriously when she was about 40 and in 1975 had her first exhibition, at the Plymouth Arts Centre. It was a great success and within a few years she was well known through other exhibitions, television appearances, and the publication of the first of several collections of her work in book form (The Works, 1978), with the paintings accompanied by her own amusing commentaries.
Her chubby, usually jovial characters have also been much used on greetings cards. Cook's subjects are drawn from everyday life and frequently involve the kind of saucy humour associated with seaside holidays (she used to run a boarding house in Plymouth) and tabloid Sunday newspapers (often she incorporated newsprint as a collage element in her work).
She found new material for her work while travelling. Early local scenes expanded those depicting Buenos Aires, New York, Cuba, Paris and Barcelona.
Cook admired the work of the English visionary artist Stanley Spencer, his influence evident in her compositions and bold bulky figures. Another influence was Edward Burra, who painted sleazy cafes, nightclubs, gay bars, sailors and prostitutes, although, unlike Burra, she does not paint the sinister aspects of scenes. She was described by Victoria Wood as "Rubens with jokes".
