Beryl Cook - Britain's Best Loved Artist
15 July 2027 at 10:00:00
Moor Park Mansion, Rickmansworth
Booking closes:
1 July 2027
Beryl Cook: Bar and Barbara, 1986
BOOKING FOR THIS EVENT IS EXPECTED TO OPEN IN JANUARY 2027
Beryl Cook, born 101 years ago, was a beloved self-taught British painter celebrated for her vibrant, affectionate, and humorous depictions of everyday life. Her work features instantly recognizable, larger-than-life figures—often voluptuous women and portly men—unapologetically enjoying themselves in pubs, nightclubs, beaches, and on holiday.
Joyful and unpretentious, her iconic style perfectly captured ordinary working-class people laughing, flirting, eating and dancing with absolute abandon. Her paintings are often likened to visual comedy, with the late comedian Victoria Wood famously describing her as "Rubens with jokes".
In today’s Special Lecture our Speaker, John Francis, will celebrate this artist, chronicler of a changing Britain, who is finally being re-assessed by critics and welcomed into the painting pantheon traditions of Stanley Spencer, Fernando Botera and Edward Burra.
John Francis
John is an inspirational speaker who has delivered lecturers and workshops in the USA, Beijing, Malaysia and the UK. Initially trained as a painter, John was awarded the Max Beckmann Memorial Scholarship in painting in Brooklyn, New York and went on to be artist in residence for the state of Texas.
Later in his career John produced and directed several short films and animations. He has taught film, art and pedagogy at the University of Exeter, Arts University Bournemouth, University Sains Malaysia, Southwestern College California, Brunel University, and Kingston University London.