Sunshine, Bath and Beryl Cook

Well it’s been quite frustrating not being able to get on with any artwork due to the school holidays but at least it’s possible to get out and see some with youngest sproggie in tow (plied with various oral gratifications).  The beautiful sunshine made it the perfect day to go to Bath where I’d earmarked a couple of exhibitions.  One was at Holburne Museum which said ‘Gwen John to Lucian Freud’ and the other at the Victoria Art Gallery featuring ‘Beryl Cook’.  Well to be honest I wasn’t too enthralled with the first one.  I had been excited about seeing some of Freud’s flesh in the flesh , but the exhibition contained just one etching.  There was a nice but small portrait by Gwen John along with a work by her brother Augustus John.  I also recognised the style of a painting by Edward Wadsworth and realised it was the same painter responsible for a painting I had seen at Bristol Museum recently on a visit with the rest of my fine art colleagues.  It had been notable to me as it was done with egg tempera, something that I intend to experiment with at some point.

Edward Wadsworth

Anyway the highlight of my day was the Beryl Cook exhibiton ‘Intimate relations’.  (Well worth a visit and on until 6^th May).  We are all familiar with her work and I feel perhaps she has not always been taken seriously in the art circles.   I spent the whole time looking at the exhibition with a big grin on my face.  These paintings make you smile and that’s got to be a good thing.

Meadow Suite 1984

Walking around the exhibition  her development was clearly evident.  Starting from early works in the 60s and 70s to more recent ones that incorporate her distinctive style.

The Lockyer Tavern early 1970s

 Self taught, her influences include Stanley Spencer, Tamara de lempicka and Edward Burra which I think is quite apparent especially in this painting, her homage to Tamara de Lempicka, ‘Tamara de Cook’.

Tamara De Cook

She has adopted the approach of an artificial method of constructing forms which has its roots in cubism.  For example in the works of Leger.

The Three Musicians.  Leger 1944

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubism

  Beryl Cook’s round figures are amusing to look at, they are reminiscent of English humour and seaside postcards.  She said she made the figures large as she didn’t like painting backgrounds.  She loved the outrageous, the larger than life flamboyant dressers and her paintings were based on things she had seen in life including everyday things such as going to the hairdressers.

 

 She relied on memory and sketches, often going out to flamboyant pubs and clubs.  In 1997 this was in Bristol as she had moved to Clifton and lived here for five years.  I can understand why her work appeals to me so much with my interest in narratives and looking at life, and I’ve always done humorous illustrations but these have only ever been done in pen and ink.  I think though that most people relate to Beryl Cook, it’s down to earth, amusing, not pretentious or ‘arty farty’ and this is why her work remains to be so popular.