Beryl Cook (1926 - )

  Never formally trained, Beryl Cook first started painting nearly forty years ago, after introducing her small son to his box of watercolours. since then she has received great popular and critical acclaim.



In 1995 Queen Elizabeth awarded Beryl an OBE ( Order of the British Empire ) for “services to art”. Her characters have been featured on Royal Mail Stamps in the company of Rodin and Renoir but so far have been overlooked by the Tate Gallery.


Beryl’s paintings have been included in the Peter Moores exhibition at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, where she was seen in the context of mainstream contemporary art, alongside Bridget Riley and Victor Pasmore. Several touring exhibitions of her paintings have visited galleries and museums around the UK. The new Glasgow Museum of Modern Art has recently acquired some of her original work ensuring her place in the annals of British art history.


Beryl Cook has created a genre as immediately recognizable as Lowry’s matchstick people of Donald McGill’s saucy postcard characters, yet she is modest about her achievement. She insists she leads a very mundane life. Her fat frolicsome people follow no party line, preach no philosophy, punch home no message other than the oblique unstated one that their creator has found through them her own pathway to a happy and fulfilled life.