Beryl Cook's unseen works to go on show in Plymouth exhibition
Cook was born in 1926 in Surrey before she moved to Plymouth in 1968 where she lived for 40 years until her death in 2008.Her work, which was prominent from the 70s to the 00s, depicted ordinary people.Sophie Cook, who was born Plymouth and now lives in Newquay, Cornwall, said: "I think it's brilliant the exhibition is coming to Plymouth because it was grandma's home for most of her life."Celebrating 100 years of Beryl needs to be done in Plymouth, it's going to be an exceptional event."The exhibition will feature more than 80 artworks by Cook, including paintings from the significant art collection at The Box, loans from both private and public collections, plus rarely seen or never before seen items from her family's archives, said curators.
Terah Walkup, art curator at The Box, has been working through the family's archives.Sophie said: "Terah is looking at the exhibition from a whole different perspective, it has not been done before."I think it is going to be really unique."Daughter-in-law Teresa Cook said her mother-in-law had featured in exhibitions in London, New York and Los Angeles but she believed the show at The Box would "come up trumps"."We are going to have a really good time," she said."Beryl painted a lot of people who were Plymothians, who may I add, were all very pleased to be painted."
Teresa said her mother-in-law was a "born artist" who was intelligent, observant and saw the humour in life, but never told jokes."She loved it when people were enjoying themselves," she said."The fans were really important to her and ordinary people loved her art."She is an artist of the people and her humour in her paintings was not always considered great art, but if you look at the skill she used over the years, she practised her art."She worked at it eight hours a day."
'Bigging up Beryl'
Rebecca Bridgman, head of collections and programme at The Box, said there had been extensive research into the pieces."I don't want to let the cat of the bag and reveal exactly what is going to be in the show, but I can say we recently acquired one of Beryl's paintings with a Plymouth bingo hall which hasn't been seen publicly before," she said."The painting shows older women socialising and having fun in a space where they could do that."It's about bigging up Beryl."
Ms Bridgman said: "She's recording working class and queer communities that maybe wouldn't have been depicted, and people just down the pub or in the bingo hall that wouldn't have necessarily been the subject of other people's work."We really want to amplify her work and think of her not just as the fun Plymouth- based painter, but somebody who had international appeal whose work was really significant for its time on lots of different levels."The exhibition will run from 24 January to 31 May 2026.
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