She was a seaside landlady who left school at 14 and who, without any formal training, became one of Britain’s most popular artists. Now, 17 years after Beryl Cook’s death, her home city of Plymouth will this week announce a major exhibition that will include previously unseen works as well as much-loved humorous paintings with larger-than-life characters.
Cook was chronically shy and avoided her exhibition openings – and would probably have stayed away from the show at The Box from January 2026.
Spanning her entire career, it will feature loans from private and public owners, including her family. It will explore her significance in portraying “ordinary people enjoying themselves”, with both comedy and compassion.
Among the paintings that have not been publicly exhibited before is Bingo, in which a woman in a bingo hall has just won a game, raising her hand in glee as a nearby woman gives her a classic Cook side-eye.
It was acquired last year by The Box, whose collections include a film and television archive, on which its curator, Terah Walkup, has drawn, linking Cook’s images to actual places.
She has, for example, identified the Plymouth bingo hall and the exact moment of inspiration for Bingo: “It was from a news clip on local television about the popularity of bingo. In one scene, a woman throws her hands up in the air celebrating a winning card, while women behind her cast a side-eye …
“Beryl had a notoriously photographic memory, so it could have been that she remembered this particular scene or seeing it on the local television. It changes the way that we might think about this classic humorous work.
“This particular film clip wasn’t just about bingo halls. It was actually about the sociability of older women. It was about how women found space in order to meet each other, socialise, spend money and have a sense of independence in the 1980s.”
The artist had in fact worried that her caricatures would offend the real-life people who had inspired them, according to her daughter-in-law, who in the early 1970s lived in the basement of Cook’s modest terrace house on the Hoe.
Teresa Cook told the Guardian: “She did worry to start with. She was nervous. Actually, that’s why the fan letters helped so much. People can recognise themselves or they feel they’ve seen somebody that looks like that … Beryl realised that there was no offence in the art and people were genuinely so happy to see her art.”
Sophie Cook, the artist’s granddaughter, said that because the caricatures were never cruel, “people loved being in the paintings.”
Recalling an earlier exhibition, she said: “The major comment from every staff member was the laughter that everyone could hear … You can be having a bad day, you go and have a look at a Beryl Cook exhibition and I guarantee your day just got better.”
She spoke of a new fanbase for Cook’s art, that the family receives correspondence from people – particularly young people – who love it.
The family hopes it is only a matter of time before the Tate shows her properly. Despite her popularity with the public, the gallery’s former director declared in 1996 that “there will be no Beryl Cooks in Tate Modern,” although she was in a 2010 group show at Tate Britain.
Julian Spalding, former director of galleries in Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow, criticised modern art museums “who wouldn’t go near Beryl with a barge pole, even though part of their job is preserving art history”.
In his 2023 book Art Exposed, he argued: “Beryl’s work merits a place in any public collection.”
He was among her earliest fans, after seeing her painting of two weary middle-aged women in a museum cafe, “easing their sore ankles out of the pinching heels of their shoes, with blissful relief spreading across their faces”.
He observed: “No troubling art to look at any more, just a cup of tea and a seat. What an earthy response to a gallery visit … She was, I thought, a genuine artist of our time.”
Teresa Cook said: “She did a few paintings of me, and I loved them all.”
They include Elvira’s Café, about which Cook once said: “This is a picture of my son and daughter-in-law’s cafe, in which they serve sausage sandwiches, amongst other things … Here you see one about to be tackled by the lady in front, with Teresa enjoying the view she had of one of the many handsome marines who frequent the cafe, for they are stationed in barracks just around the corner. In the summer they sometimes arrive in sporting gear, like this vest and tiny shorts.”
Walkup noted that the Tate had been supportive of this exhibition: “This is the most extensive exhibition of Beryl Cook’s work to date, a landmark show.
“It’s all about recasting Beryl’s career and showing that she’s quite radical, particularly to do with identity and representation. Beryl was painting those who have been overlooked by society.”
The exhibition draws on Cook’s previously unpublished letters. In one, she wrote: “Instead of doing housework, I go upstairs and start painting.”
