Beryl's legacy is a nation's smiles

THERE are two collections in Plymouth that show how great an artist Beryl Cook was: one public and joyful, the other private and sad.

In the Roland Levinsky Building at the University of Plymouth the first full-scale exhibition of Beryl's paintings since her death last spring is drawing crowds.

Art-show regulars and gallery virgins, they all leave with smiles on their faces.

Across the city centre in her home on the Hoe, there is a collection of newspaper cuttings. The volume has a mournful black cover but with a touch of Beryl warmth – the fabric is fluffy and furry, like the Friday-night scarves of one of her partying women subjects.

Inside are obituaries from the world's leading English-language newspapers, from the front page of The Times in London to the Washington Post in the USA and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia.

"It was amazing, the coverage," says her husband, John, turning page after page.

Amazing for two reasons: Beryl never promoted her paintings and many critics were scathing about her work.

Yet she became probably Britain's most popular artist and her pictures were known and admired, acquired and shared by millions of people around the world because so many were reproduced as cards.

But public adoration, in Plymouth and around the world, does not lessen private grief, which was clear as soon as I met John.

When he answered the door I was shocked.

On the two previous occasions we'd met, Beryl was by his side and her laughter was all around him. They'd complete each other's sentences, giggle like schoolchildren at each other's jokes. He'd shoot me a "see what she is like?" glance.

But today he seems to have shrunk, as if when Beryl Cook went, half of John Cook did, too.

There is a lot of Beryl in the room, expressed in the things she loved: Art Deco furniture, highly decorated ornaments – a toucan perches on a coloured-glass vase – and pieces of her needlework. What is missing is her sound.

The quietness after John closes the book of obituaries is long enough to move from awkward to painful.

He seems relieved to be asked about the exhibition, though, which was planned before Beryl died, aged 81, in May.

"The university have done a great job and Jess Wilder, the director of the Portal Gallery (in London, which carries Beryl's pictures exclusively) played a very important role, borrowing back paintings they had sold.

"I think it is a marvellous tribute to Beryl."

Another long pause follows. And then he volunteers: "When you have a wonderful happy marriage it makes the parting so very difficult.

"You can imagine the awful feeling when Beryl went. The first three months were..." his voice tails off. "I couldn't talk about it."

They would have been married 60 years in October but their love affair was even longer.

John and Beryl grew up as neighbours in Egham in Surrey and were dating by the age of 15. They kept in touch during his war service in the Merchant Navy and married in 1948.

John continued his career at sea until Beryl persuaded him to try his luck on land.

A spell running a pub wasn't a success, however. "We both liked going out for a drink," John says. "We didn't like that, though."

He speaks slowly and precisely. You can almost hear the full stop at the end of his sentences, which seem to say 'that's all there is to say about that'.

Their son, also John, was born in 1950 and the young family tried their luck in what was then the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where Beryl had a relative. There, John found his career, in the motor trade, and Beryl made the first steps towards what would become hers. She picked up her son's paints and produced a few pictures.

"The first thing she painted was an African woman with pendulous breasts," John says, managing a smile.

They stayed for nine years and again Beryl was the instigator of change, who prompted return to Britain. He found work for a car dealership in Bodmin and they lived in Looe where an antiques shop owner and friend spotted Beryl's painting and suggested trying to sell three. They made £30. "That gave Beryl a fillip and she painted more."

Their next move was to Plymouth where they bought a large house in Athenaeum Street on the Hoe. When their son grew up and left home, Beryl did bed and breakfast in the summer and painted in the winter.

In 1975, word from a B&B guest – a touring actor – reached Plymouth Arts Centre director Bernard Samuels, who asked if Beryl would do an exhibition.

"Beryl said yes, on one condition," says John, smiling wryly. "She said she would not do any publicity.

"Beryl never courted publicity. Instead, it always came to her."

Plymouth people clamoured for her work – every picture sold – and Britain followed shortly after. Early in 1976 The Sunday Times featured Beryl on the cover of their magazine and within days galleries were clamouring for her work. There were television programmes, including a profile by one critic and fan, Melvyn Bragg, many successful shows and her work is on permanent display in public galleries in Glasgow, Bristol and Plymouth.

Although her paintings sold for tens of thousands of pounds John says Beryl was 'frightened' of the money and unmoved by the lack of critical acclaim. "What Beryl loved was when people, especially children, wrote to say they like her work. She answered every letter," John reveals.

"Some critics could be quite rude about her. She knew what they said although she never read it – she never read anything about herself – and it did not bother her. Why should it? She loved painting."

The internationally known critic Edward Lucie-Smith admired and encouraged her, though. John says: "It helped her confidence an awful lot. He said 'you'll be remembered when a lot of present-day painters are forgotten'."

Lucie-Smith recognised the untrained artist's great talent as an observer and chronicler. He praised the energy of her work and the pictorial design and mentioned her in the same light as two other chroniclers of ordinary people, the 16th Century Flemish master Pieter Bruegel and an acclaimed 20th Century Briton, Sir Stanley Spencer (whose work Beryl particularly enjoyed).

Some have suggested that Beryl's paintings of Plymouth people cheerily misbehaving were the shy artist living through the antics of exuberant, carefree others. She denied that herself, saying she just enjoyed being around others enjoying themselves.

In fact, although she grew to hate crowds – the main reason she attended only one of the openings of her many exhibitions and did not collect her OBE in person – there was a touch of flamboyance in her past. She was briefly a showgirl in her youth.

Beryl didn't need to show off to have fun and, although she and John both loved pubs and clubs, she drank little, he says.

She painted with affection Plymouth people on the margins, some of them strippers and brawlers, many of them eating and drinking too much, most of them behaving how society says they shouldn't. She worked in a city on the margins, too, of the South West, socially and geographically, but still struck a chord throughout Britain.

But when the university show is over, what will her city be left with? Shouldn't Plymouth have a Cook gallery as Salford has the Lowry building, and a permanent exhibition in her name?

John is in favour but he is unsure what Beryl would have thought. He is certain, though, of her reaction to the current exhibition.

"She'd have said: 'It may not be great art but people are coming away smiling.' She thought she had done her job with a reaction like that."

Beryl Cook, 1926-2008 continues at the Peninsula Arts Gallery in the Roland Levinsky Building, North Hill until December 20. The book of the same name (University of Plymouth Press, £16) is available at the show.

2fmedia.thisisplymouth.co.uk%2fTSPlayer%2fJSON.aspx%3fid%3d14097%26embedded%3dtrue" menu="false" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" quality="high" bgcolor="#C1C9E0" src="http://media.thisisplymouth.co.uk/tsplayer/videoplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>

A major exhibition celebrating the life and work of artist Beryl Cook is to open in the city which inspired her work. For six weeks, the University of Plymouth will host the exhibition in the Peninsula Arts Gallery in the Roland Levinsky Building.