The Unlikely Synergy Between Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland

BERYL COOK Bar and Barbara, 1984

The new exhibition invites viewers to see both seemingly disparate artists through a lens of humour, desire and corporality

At first glance, Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland might seem like an odd pairing for an exhibition. Indeed, living in early 20th-century Europe may be their only commonality. But Studio Voltaire’s curator Nicola Wright and director Joe Scotland “had an instinctual reaction to the ways they both approached the body,” according to Scotland. And that’s how their exhibition Beryl Cook / Tom of Finland, which opens this week, first began.

A dash of serendipity helped the exhibition come to life. While the organisers were busy working on the concept, the Tom of Finland Foundation reached out to them about a possible collaboration for Pride. “This was a karmic sign so we immediately responded with our idea,” recalls Wright. They were already in touch with the Beryl Cook Estate for a merchandise partnership, “but as we kept digging through the work, it became apparent that there was material to exhibit,” she says.

Coinciding with Studio Voltaire’s 30th anniversary, the resulting exhibition juxtaposes Cook’s colourful images of voluptuous small-town ladies and boisterous bar brawls with Tom of Finland’s ritualistic sexual encounters between leather-clad hunks in black and white. Similar clothes and gestures provide the connecting thread in the show’s curation.

“They both depicted extravagant outfits and specific facial features in their subjects,” says Wright. In other cases, the organisers see a rather more subdued similarity between the two. “A longing look or a turned head within a crowded scene might have an underlying storyline,” she adds. Cook’s The Lockyer Tavern (1974), for example, depicts a working-class pub where a well-endowed woman and an older man occupy the forefront of a jubilant scene. A group of two gentlemen and their female friend in front of a far-off door stare directly at us, alluding to what was believed to exist as an off-the-radar gay bar in the back.

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Published: 14th August 2024

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