Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy exhibition opens next month in Plymouth

By John Freeman on December 22, 2025 • ( 0 )

If you’re thinking of heading to Plymouth next month to see the much anticipated free “Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy” exhibition at The Box, you’re in good company.

*Back Bar of the Lockyer Tavern by Beryl Cook, featured on the front cover of the Sunday Times Magazine in February 1976. Courtesy of ourberylcook.com © John Cook 2025*

BBC News reports more than 3000 people have snapped up tickets to see paintings by Beryl Cook, who was famed for her colourful work of people having fun.

The Box – social space for people, art, ideas and experiences which opened in 2020 and has sine seen some one million people through its doors – announced its plans for its landmark Beryl Cook exhibition earlier this year.

Taking place 100 years after the popular artist was born, the exhibition will re-assess and re-present Cook’s work, giving her the acclaim she deserves.

“Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy” will run from Saturday 24th January to Sunday 31st May 2026, and will be the most extensive exhibition of Beryl’s work to date. With the help of new research and rarely or never seen before paintings and archival material, it will reposition Cook’s career and contribution to British art.

Born Beryl Frances Lansley in Egham, Surrey in 1926, Cook was a self-taught artist who was already in her late thirties when she picked up a paint brush. She moved to Plymouth in 1968, and the city and its people became her muse for the next 40 years.

Her first exhibition at the former Plymouth Arts Centre in 1975 led to a major feature in the Sunday Times and launched a career filled with vibrant, warm-hearted paintings that led to an OBE for services to the arts in 1995.

*“Sailors and Seagulls” by Beryl Cook. Courtesy of ourberylcook.com © John Cook 2025*

“A century after she was born a reappraisal of Beryl Cook’s work feels long overdue,” Victoria Pomery, CEO, The Box Plymouth commented back in June. “Although loved by many, she wasn’t given enough serious consideration during her lifetime and we want to change that.

“This exhibition is a timely opportunity for us to fully explore her impact and highlight how skilled she was at documenting everyday life during a time of social change from the 1970s to the 2000s.”

Ambitious in scale as well as approach, the exhibition will feature more than 80 works, including paintings from The Box’s significant art collection, loans from both private and public collections, plus rarely seen items from the personal archives of the Cook family.

*“Beach at Looe” and “Bingo” by Beryl Cook, the latter acquired with assistance from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Art Fund. Courtesy of ourberylcook.com © John Cook 2025*

“We are thrilled to be celebrating 100 years of Beryl with The Box,” said Sophie Cook, granddaughter of Beryl Cook. “Plymouth had a special place in Beryl’s heart having spent most of her life living there, so this feels like the rightful home for such a special exhibition.”

Four life-size 3D sculptures based on her paintings will also appear across the Devon city would have delighted Beryl, Sophie told the BBC, as “she loved Plymouth and Plymouth loved her back”.

The exhibition will also feature works by figures from history with whom Cook felt an affinity, such as influential Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Younger (1564-1638) and acclaimed English artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959). Her continued impact on artists who are working today will also be explored.

“This exhibition is a chance for us to really examine Cook’s meticulous practice, process and legacy, as well as present a wider contextualisation of her career,” noted Terah Walkup, art curator, The Box Plymouth. “It will foreground her fascination and positive portrayals of a variety of people and communities, including those who were often on the fringes of mainstream society and, through the research we’re doing, share fresh perspectives from those who knew her, were painted by her or were there when some of her most iconic works were created.”

In celebration of the exhibition, The Box will also be organising related displays that delve even further into Cook’s archives and hosting a series of brilliant events. Bespoke merchandise and a fully illustrated book will be available from the venue’s onsite and online shops.

Although free, the “Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy” exhibition will be ticketed, and booking is advised. (Donations welcome). There will be spaces on the day for walk-ups.

From 14th February 2026, your ticket will also give you access to the upcoming major “Journeys with Mai” exhibition, featuring works by Plympton-born Sir Joshua Reynolds.

• “Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy” Saturday 24th January to Sunday 31st May 2026, The Box, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AX | Book free tickets here | View The Box location in Google Maps

• KARST will also present Discord and Harmony, an exhibition of contemporary British artists whose work shares Cook’s radically generous approach to representing everyday life, from 24th January – 18th April 2026.

• Follow The Box on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or X

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.