Born in Surrey, Cook left Kendrick Girls' Grammar School, Reading, aged just fourteen and moved to London in 1943. It was not until 1963 when she settled in Plymouth, that Cook began to paint in earnest. Entirely self-taught she observed and characterised the inhabitants of her hometown with a streak of playfulness. Cook's first exhibition at the Plymouth Art Centre in 1975 received wide media coverage and led to her Portal Gallery exhibition in London the following year. As her reputation grew she featured on
The South Bank Show (1979), was created an OBE (1996) and had her characters made into animated films for television (
Bosom Pals, 2004). The largest exhibition of Cook's work to date was held at the Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art (2007).
Tim Mercer has recently donated ten of his photographs to the National Portrait Gallery. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Mercer has photographed widely for leading magazines including
Vanity Fair and the
Sunday Times Magazine.
Previous Photographs of the Month
