Beryl Cook
Painted large cheerful people enjoying themselves, and was loved for it by everyone except the critics.
Beryl Cook was born in Egham in 1926 and came to painting late and entirely without training, having worked as a showgirl, in an insurance office, and running a boarding house in Plymouth. She painted her first picture in her thirties on a piece of wood, using her son's paintbox, and was discovered in 1975 when a Plymouth gallery mounted a show. The subject never changed: large, contented, unmistakably ordinary people in pubs, on buses, at the bingo, dancing, on holiday, painted with obvious affection and a total indifference to the fashions of the day. She was made an OBE in 1995 and died in 2008.
The paintings are unique, generally oil on board or on panel rather than canvas, and are the substantial part of the market. Against them sits a very large volume of signed limited-edition prints published during her lifetime and a great many unsigned open-edition reproductions, posters and greetings cards, which are not the same thing and are regularly brought in as though they were. On a print, the pencil signature, the edition number in the margin and the publisher's blindstamp are what separate the two. The estate is the point of reference for authenticity.
If you own a work by Beryl Cook
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.