"A new show at Plymouth's The Box gallery, Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy, until 31 May, places the late artist in the established Western art canon, tracing her links to figures such as Rubens and Amedeo Modigliani. Marking the centenary of Cook's birth, the exhibition celebrates her association with the Western English port city. It features more than 80 paintings alongside sculptures, textiles plus a personal archive of photographs, sketches and letters."
"Her depictions of Plymouth's gay bars and nightlife in the less tolerant 1970s reflects Cook's deep affinity with the LGBTQ community. "[Her] paintings of the Lockyer Tavern, whose back bar was a well-known safe space especially among gay men, serve as a significant visual record of history in Plymouth," writes Walkup. Cook's under-the-radar work spans historic LGBTQ milestones, from the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to the introduction of the controversial Section 28 legislation in 1988."
Beryl Cook is undergoing a renaissance with two concurrent shows in Plymouth that reframe her position within the Western art canon. A major display at Plymouth's The Box, Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy, traces links to figures such as Rubens and Amedeo Modigliani and marks the centenary of her birth. The presentation includes more than 80 paintings, sculptures, textiles and a personal archive of photographs, sketches and letters. The curatorial approach applies art-historical contextualisation to Cook's oeuvre. The self-taught artist painted overlooked and marginalised individuals—working-class people, LGBTQ communities and older women—as agents of their own joy. Her scenes of gay bars record local LGBTQ history and milestones from 1967 to Section 28.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]