Beryl Cook celebrated the maligned of British society: now her paintings have their moment in Plymouth

Once named Britain’s most popular painter, self-taught British artist Beryl Cook (1926-2008) was an astute documenter of daily life in Britain. Her distinctive, cheerful and colourful style belied a sharp eye – Cook saw past gender, sexuality and class, choosing to celebrate those often excluded from mainstream representation. Often dismissed as superficial, Cook is now being restored to her rightful place in the art history canon with a major retrospective at The Box in Plymouth, her hometown. (The exhibition follows a number in recent years, including a 2024 show at London's Studio Voltaire that teamed her works with those of Tom of Finland.)

Born in Surrey, Cook moved to Plymouth in 1968 and spent the next four decades chronicling its life, through the economic upheaval of the 1970s, across the dawning consumerist conscience of the 1980s and onwards. Her paintings of its bars, bingo halls, streets and pubs are populated with a cast of the marginalised, from the drag queens indulging in LGBTQ+ nightlife to plus-sized working class women, voluptuous and sensual in their clinging, patterned clothes.

‘Beryl Cook wasn't painting caricatures,’ says Terah Walkup, curator at The Box. ‘She was documenting communities and identities that were actively marginalised, and she did it with genuine affection, technical mastery, and unflinching honesty. Her work from the 1970s to 2000s captures working-class joy, body positivity, and queer culture with a sophistication that's only now being fully recognised.’

Alongside these works, her rarer self-portraiture is displayed, depicting a more fantastical side of her character that she shied away from showing during her lifetime. Lesser known, too, are her inspirations, from Stanley Spencer and Edward Burra to Alfred Wallis, which are placed in context alongside Cook’s own work. Cook’s process, explored in the exhibition – she photographed news reels, street scenes, television screens and newspapers and worked across mediums, including in sculpture and textiles – reveals a canny and contemporary artist.

‘A century after she was born, a reappraisal of Beryl Cook's work feels long overdue,’ says Victoria Pomery, CEO of The Box. ‘Although loved by many, she wasn't given enough serious consideration during her lifetime, and we want to change that. This exhibition is a timely opportunity for us to fully explore her impact and highlight how skilled she was at documenting everyday life during a time of immense social change from the 1970s to the 2000s.’

‘Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy’ at The Box until 24 March 2026, theboxplymouth.com