P J Crook MBE (born 1945) is a British painter. Although she has shown successfully in London for many years, her work is perhaps better known in France and America, where she has a huge following. She also exhibits regularly in Japan, Canada, and Estonia.
Art dealer Brian Sinfeld argues that Crook's work is akin to that of Balthus and René Magritte due to a shared tendency towards "surrealistic works of static, quirky realism [that] belie a powerful mysticism lying below the surface'.[1]
Crook was born in 1945 in Cheltenham, England, where she still lives.[2]
From a studio opposite her house, she manages compositions on a monumental scale — paintings can measure 2 × 4.5 metres and also paints small pictures, some no larger than 10 cm square. She works in tinted gesso, acrylic and sometimes in oil on canvas, or on a corrugated wood support, which gives a three dimensional effect to her work, as does her practice of incorporating the frame within the composition.
A recurring theme within her work is crowd interaction. Some of these paintings have been used as covers for King Crimson's recent albums since 1997, this year's being 'A Scarcity of Miracles'. Alain Coudert writing in Arts Actualities Magazine, Paris says of her work: "The world according to P. J. Crook is full of individuals losing their identities in a crowd, where they are packed tightly like sardines in a tin. But this is not sad, it is merely a symptom of an age which tends to walk on its head."[3]
Crook is a Patron of the National Star College Cheltenham; a Trustee and director of ACS (the Artists' Collecting Society); Trustee of the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail Trust; Patron of Cheltenham Open Studios; a Gloucestershire Ambassador; President of the Friends of Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum; member of the Royal West of England Academy; Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. Honorary Doctor of Art from the University of Gloucestershire. She is a member of the Chelsea Arts Club and the Honourable Company of Gloucestershire.
Crook was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to art.[4]
She is represented by the Hay Hill Gallery on Cork Street in London and Galerie Alain Blondel in Paris