Her fur coat

My Fur Coat by Beryl Cook, circa. 1988

When I was a child in the 1970s my parents used to have a few Beryl Cook prints on the walls, and maybe a book or two by her too. I found them pretty risque as an innocent boy. When I got older, I found them kitsch, vulgar and tasteless. Now… I find them rather wonderful. My Fur Coat being by far my favourite of hers.

There’s so much to admire in the painting: the humour, the detail in the fur coat, the man’s expression, the eroticism, the mystery. How has it not been an album cover?

But Cook’s paintings were never, ever cool. Despite supposedly being one of Britain’s best-loved artists, she has perhaps fallen of favour, and been replaced by hipper artists – Banksy, say? A 2017 survey of Britain’s best-loved paintings by Samsung (of just 2,000 people, mind) revealed Banksy’s stencil Child with Balloon at number one. Now, Banksy does nothing for me. I wouldn’t even call him an artist (satirist? Illustrator?). His ideas are obvious and one-dimensional. Great for Instagram, though. Other names on the list are just as kitsch and naive as Cook, including LS Lowry and Jack Vettriano (in at No.3 with his Singing Butler), but no sign of Beryl. It’s worth noting that only two female artists were on the list. I’m sure that statistic would be different today.

Beryl Cook (1926-2008) was born in Surrey and lived variously in London, Suffolk, Zimbabwe and Cornwall before settling in Plymouth, where she begin painting in earnest whilst running a guest house with her husband. She was self-taught and influenced by painters Stanley Spencer and Edward Burra.

Her paintings are instantly recognisable depictions of the British at play in every day life – pubs and picnics, shopping and hen nights. A lot of the backgrounds in her paintings are actual roads and buildings in Plymouth. Her flamboyant characters are chunky and round, and often saucy; sometimes naked. One of her figures could flick over a whole street of Lowry’s with a single finger.

Around 1975 a guest staying at the Cook’s B&B liked her paintings and put her in touch with the manager of the Plymouth Arts Centre, where she had her first exhibition later that year. It was a great success, and fame soon followed with magazine articles, further exhibitions, books, postage stamps and animated films. Beryl’s son now run her website, where her images can be bought on everything from coasters to clocks.

Cook, predictably, never received acceptance from the art world. But then Henri Roussau, another self-taught, naive painter, was ridiculed by critics throughout his career. Van Gogh, Monet and El Greco were similarly ignored or mocked. Another popularist painter, Vladimir Tretchikoff, was also self-taught and sold millions of prints in the 1970s (and said to be the second richest painter after Picasso), yet was seen by art critics as the embodiment of kitsch.

In Wayne Hemingway’s wonderful book Just Above The Mantelpiece: Mass-Market Masterpieces, which explores the popularity of mass-produced art since the 1950s, he writes of Tretchikoff, “He achieved everything that Andy Warhol stated he wanted to do but could never achieve because of his coolness.”

Beryl Cook was never cool, or a man – two things against her in the art world. But, like Tretchikoff, her paintings spoke to people, and gave them a laugh. Cook received so much fan mail that meant more to her than art world acceptance.

Previously on Barnflakes
Banksy’s naked hanging man, before and after
Banksy versus Bristol Museum
Edward Burra: 20th century man
Vladimir Tretchikoff: More Than Pigeon’s Luck
How to have taste