{"product_id":"beryl-cook-tom-of-finland","title":"Beryl Cook \/ Tom of Finland","description":"This bold catalogue brings together the work of two cultural icons for the very\nfirst time: Beryl Cook (1926–2008) and Tom of Finland (1920–1991). It was\ninspired by the 2024 exhibition Beryl Cook \/ Tom of Finland at Studio Voltaire\nin London. Beryl Cook was a painter renowned for her exuberant style and\ndescriptions of everyday life. Her work captures the social milieu of the areas\nshe lived in and visited, notably Plymouth. Her most enduring images are of\nlarger-than-life women carousing in nightclubs, eating in cafés or enjoying\nribald hen parties, rendered in graphic and colourful forms. Cook’s work came to\nprominence in the mid-1970s and she quickly became known as one of Britain’s\nbest-loved artists, highly recognised for her distinctive works, which are both\ncelebratory and provocative. Tom of Finland’s pioneering depictions of\nhomosexual machismo in his images of bikers, soldiers, cowboys, sailors and\nlabourers broadly represent queer, leather and muscle communities. A master\ndraughtsman, he used his works to give form to an imaginative universe that, in\nturn, helped fuel real-world liberation movements and had significant influence\non a wide range of cultural figures including the Village People, Freddie\nMercury, Jean Paul Gaultier and Robert Mapplethorpe. Beryl Cook \/ Tom of Finland\nputs their work into conversation for the first time. The pairing is perhaps\nunexpected, yet immediate and compelling relationships between their practices\nare evident. Fundamentally, both artists employed a sustained and coherent way\nof hyper-realising the body in images that celebrate pleasure and deny shame.\nTogether, their works reveal interconnected ideas surrounding sexuality, gender,\ntaste and class. Artist and writer Huw Lemmey has contributed an incisive new\nessay exploring the queer contexts inherent to Tom of Finland’s work, but that\nalso finds latent resonance in Cook’s paintings of gay bars and shapely women.\nHe further considers the commercial forms of distribution that made their\ncomplex bodies of works highly accessible. Spanning five decades of paintings,\ndrawings and archival materials, this companion catalogue contributes to new\nreadings of the artists’ practices and their enduring impact on popular culture.","brand":"BELLES LETTRES - BLDD S.A.S.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41283162931264,"sku":"9781913645830","price":25.73,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/6342\/4320\/files\/p6gw0fhyJhfQzuwcX3tjZw9WZhXrma7CImOoAwa_5h35_DubMNlJnA-cover-large.jpg?v=1782327579","url":"https:\/\/wearvico.com\/products\/beryl-cook-tom-of-finland","provider":"wearvico","version":"1.0","type":"link"}