Beryl Cook's love of painting developed during her early married life, following the enjoyment she received from a child's painting set her husband John bought her as a birthday present.

John's work took the family overseas in 1957. Having spent 7 years in southern Rhodesia, the family returned home in 1964 and eventualy settled in Plymouth where Beryl established a business running a guest house catering mainly for holiday makers.

By this time Beryl had enjoyed painting for a number of years, most of her paintings depicted her view of every day life and the people she came into contact with.

The walls of her guest house were eventually covered by the large number of paintings she produced. In 1975 a friend persuaded her to let him try and sell some of her work.

Beryl was pleasantly surprised when her friend quickly returned to her having successfully sold all the paintings. (the buyers of this body of Beryl's work must now be celebrating their good fortune as the pictures all sold for appoximatly £10 each).

An exhibition of 75 paintings soon followed at the Plymouth Arts Centre which sold out completely. Further exhibitions in London at both the Portal and Whitechapel Galleries proved just as popular and her work was soon being used for the creation of internationally aclaimed greetings cards, calenders and limited edtion prints.

The Glasgow Museum of Modern Art now owns a number of Beryl's original paintings, her work has also received praise and appreciation from a number of well known critics of mainstream contempary art.