Beryl Cook
Eleanor Beryl Cook OBE (born September 10, 1926 in Egham , Surrey , † May 28, 2008 in Plymouth ) was a British painter of naive art , who was known for her comical portraits of fat people.
life and work
Cook attended the Kendrick School in Reading . At the age of 14, she left school and worked in various professions. After moving to London in 1943, she became a dancer in a touring production of the operetta Die Csárdásfürstin . In 1946 she married her childhood friend John, who went to sea in the British Merchant Navy. After the birth of their son John in 1950, the family moved to Southern Rhodesia (today's Zimbabwe) in 1951 . It was there that the self-taught Beryl Cook began to paint - initially with her son's colors on everyday materials such as wooden boards or chimney screens.
In 1963 the Cooks returned to England and initially lived in Cornwall . After moving again, the couple ran a guesthouse in the port city of Plymouth in Devon, which was mainly used by theater actors in the summer months. In the summer the Cooks frequented the bars of Plymouth, in the winter months Beryl Cook concentrated on painting and, under the influence of the painting of Stanley Spencer and Edward Burras, created oil paintings on wood, based on their almost photographic memory, which her personal image of Plymouth and the describe the “scene” there. An art dealer friend of hers persuaded her to sell paintings for the first time. Bernard Samuels from the Plymouth Art Center became aware of the "local phenomenon" Cook and was able to win her for an exhibition in 1975. This exhibition was a huge hit and made it to the front cover of Sunday Times Magazine . In 1976 an exhibition followed at the Portal Gallery in London .
Cook's pictures became popular not least because of a naive, comical, dark style of painting - Victoria Wood referred to them in 2006 as "Rubens with jokes" ( Rubens with jokes). The garish and extroverted personalities of the Plymoth nightlife that Cook depicted in her paintings stand in contrast to her personality, described as introverted and shy.
On trips to Buenos Aires, New York, Cuba, Paris and Barcelona, Cook gained new impressions, which she incorporated as motifs in her art. In 1995 she was appointed "Officer of the Order of the British Empire " (OBE), and in 2002 her work The Royal Couple was included in the Golden Jubilee Exhibition for the golden jubilee of Elizabeth II. Two half-hour cartoons based on Cook's paintings (produced by Tiger Aspect, broadcast on BBC in 2004) about women meeting at the Dolphin Pub in Plymouth won several cartoon awards. In 2006 the Portal Gallery in London hosted a major retrospective on the artist's 80th birthday, and in 2007 another retrospective was shown at the BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art in Gateshead.
literature
- Jess Wilder, Jérôme Sans (Red.): The world of Beryl Cook. On the occasion of the Exhibition Beryl Cook - My World, at BALTIC, Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead . Prestel, Munich et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-7913-3920-7
Web links
- Literature by and about Beryl Cook in the catalog of the German National Library
- Beryl Cook in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Painting by Beryl Cook
- Critical article in the Guardian
Individual evidence
- ^ Isabel Albiston: The world of Beryl Cook, artist , Telegraph magazine, July 14, 2007
- ^ Rachel Campbell-Johnston: Roll out the Beryls - Interview , The Times , Aug. 29, 2006
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cook, Beryl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cook, Eleanor Beryl (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 10, 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Egham |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 28, 2008 |
| Place of death | Plymouth |