Beryl Cook
Strippergram, 2001
£795
A lifetime, limited edition silkscreen print, signed and numbered by the artist.
Dimensions
72.5 x 67 cm
Finishing
Screenprint on paper
Artist's Proof, signed and numbered XVIII / LX (18 of 60) by the artist
Courtesy the artist's estate
About The Artwork
The Dolphin in Plymouth features in several of Beryl Cook's paintings as one of her local pubs. As the artist recalls "this group of men was standing together in front of our table in the Dolphin one evening when they were joined by a fat little lady in a blue coat. Singling out the birthday boy she suddenly peeled off the coat, revealing this slightly grubby corset and black lace knickers. Open mouthed, we watched as he was made to kneel and have his head massaged by her now-naked bosom. I'm not sure what he thought abut his birthday present; I was hastily sketching the incident inside my handbag."
About Beryl Cook
Beryl Cook (1926–2008) was one of Britain’s best-loved artists. A self-taught painter, Cook is renowned for her exuberant style and explorations of English cultural identity and everyday life. Portrayed with defiance, her work can be understood as engaging with ideas around ‘female camp’, class and pleasure. Additionally, they can be contextualised within contemporary body positivity movements. Her larger-sized, usually jovial characters celebrate bigger bodies and inclusivity.
Cook's most celebrated and enduring images are of larger-than-life women carousing in nightclubs, eating in cafés or enjoying ribald hen parties. Though the women in Cook’s works embody comedic or bawdy qualities, they command the space of her paintings in complex, vivid and entirely believable portraits that draw from keenly observed social interactions.
Today, her works are held in the collections of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, the Bristol City Museum of Art Gallery, and the Plymouth City Art Gallery, among others. The artist has received retrospective exhibitions at Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2007); Plymouth City Art Gallery, Plymouth (2017); and A.H.F.T.A.W, New York (2022).