Beryl Cook Cutouts Invade Bicester Village in House of Voltaire Offsite Project

Owen Hatherley reviews Beryl Cook and Friends, an offsite project by House of Voltaire, the shop of Studio Voltaire, installed at Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, an hour northwest of London. The exhibition features giant wooden cutouts of figures from Beryl Cook's paintings placed among the designer outlet mall's shops. Bicester Village, opened in 1995, is a major UK tourist destination known for its homogeneous 'traditional' aesthetic and international clientele; train announcements at Marylebone station are made in Arabic and Mandarin. Hatherley notes the incongruity of Cook's raucous, working-class imagery in a space of luxury discount shopping. He describes encountering cutouts from Ted and Heinrich (1989), Pretty Wood, Sir (c. 1981), Bowling (c. 1975), and Madam Jo Jos (1987) near the railway station, and later Breakfast at Elvira's (1996) as a miniature shopfront and Doing the Lambada (c. 1994) on a pub balcony. A pop-up House of Voltaire branch sells Cook merchandise at high prices. Hatherley reflects on Cook's critical reception, from dismissal by former Arts Council head Nicholas Serota to praise from comedian Victoria Wood, who called her 'Rubens with jokes.' Cook died in Plymouth in 2008. The installation, on view in 2026, prompts questions about art's autonomy versus commerce and the authenticity of 'Englishness.'