Private View

“Beryl Cook, OBE (10 September 1926 – 28 May 2008) was an English artist best known for comical paintings of people she encountered in her home city. She had no formal training and did not take up painting until middle age … In 1963, the Cooks returned to England to live in Cornwall, where she began to paint seriously. They moved to Plymouth, where they ran a busy theatrical boarding house in the summer months. She concentrated on painting in the winter months, recreating her personal views of Plymouth in oils on wooden panels. An antique dealer friend persuaded her to let him try and sell a few, and they sold quickly. Bernard Samuels of the Plymouth Art Centre became aware of this “local phenomenon”, and, in 1975, he convinced her to have an exhibition. The show resulted in a cover feature in the Sunday Times magazine, followed by her first exhibition in London in 1976 at the Portal Gallery, where she continued to exhibit until her death. In 1979, a film was made about Cook for LWT’s The South Bank Show, where she discussed her work with Melvyn Bragg.