Miriam Craig delves into the debate about Beryl Cook's paintings of larger-than-average ladies and other scenes from everyday life, as prints of her work go on display in Radlett.

Beryl Cook is one of Britain's most popular living artists, despite having no formal art training.

After starting to paint while living in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her husband and young son, she continued to paint on returning to England during the Sixties, and sold her work for the first time in the mid Seventies.

Cook, who lives in Plymouth, received an OBE in 1995 and still paints at the age of 81. Her work is featured around the world as greeting cards, limited edition prints, calendars and books, while a Beryl Cook original is likely to sell for around £40,000.

A collection of signed limited edition prints, including old favourites Ladies Night and My Fur Coat, is on show at the Tzar Deli, in Watling Street, Radlett.

Deli owner Michael Handman said: "We are very excited about the exhibition. The humourous work brightens everyone's day."

But it seems not everyone is quite so pleased at the prospect. Like fellow artist Jack Vettriano, Cook works outside the worlds of either trendy contemporary or traditional fine art, and her work is often dismissed by bigwigs.

Professor of Art and Critical Theory at Middlesex University, John Bird, says Cook's paintings are well done "for what they are", but have no relevance to what is challenging or innovative about contemporary fine art practice. He says: "She is never going to figure in a history of painting in the 20th or 21st Century."

Professor Bird, who specialises in 19th and 20th Century art, says Cook's work is not admired in the academic world because it does not share that world's artistic values.

He explains: "It's rather like the difference between going around the Royal Academy Summer Exhi-bition, which is a justifiable goal for many artists, and going round the East End galleries in Hoxton. There's a complete gulf between the two. It doesn't make one better than the other."

While some of his comments suggest Cook's work is just as valid as that of any Turner prizewinner, other remarks give away a more disdainful attitude. He says: "Just because someone is popular doesn't mean they are good."

Meanwhile celebrity collectors of Cook's work include Jackie Collins and Mick Jagger. Another notable fan, writer and journalist Hunter Davies, first came across Cook's work in 1975 when he was editor of the Sunday Times Magazine.

When pictures of her paintings were sent to the magazine, Hunter rushed excitedly to show them to the art department, only to be told they were "crude and derivative".

Yet he still featured an article about Cook's work, and bought a painting by her of three women sunbathing: "I liked it because it made me think of my twin sisters who would lie prone in the titchy back garden of our council house in Carlisle whenever the sun came out."

He continues: "Trained art critics are very snobby and superior about any sort of self-taught, amateur or primitive painting. I thought Beryl Cook was amazing and funny. It's all a matter of taste. Obviously it's not challenging; that's not the point of it. It's meant to amuse and give entertainment."

As for Cook herself, the pictures are something of a mystery. She says: "I don't know how my pictures happen. They just do. They exist, but for the life of me I can't explain them."

Cook's prints are on show until March 30, Monday to Saturday from 8am to 7pm, and Sunday from 8am to 2.30pm. For more information call 01923 859819.