Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry CBE RA is an English contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003. He has published two autobiographies, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl and The Descent of Man. In 2015 he was appointed to succeed Kwame Kwei-Armah as chancellor of University of the Arts London.

About Grayson Perry in brief

Summary Grayson PerryGrayson Perry CBE RA is an English contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003. He has published two autobiographies, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl and The Descent of Man. In 2013 he delivered the BBC Reith Lectures. In 2015 he was appointed to succeed Kwame Kwei-Armah as chancellor of University of the Arts London. In 2012, Perry was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. He lives in north London with his wife, the author and psychotherapist Philippa Perry. They have one daughter, Florence, born in 1992. Perry is a keen mountain biker and motorcyclist and has designed works of art to raise funds for the Labour Party. In September 2015, Perry endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for Labour Party leadership. In 2011 he returned to the annual Koestler Trust exhibition, held at London’s Southbank Centre and judged the award winners in Art Offenders with Will Selfbank and Emma Selfbank. He described the art works as ‘raw and all the more powerful for all the institutions that make up the Koestle Trust’ In 2011, he returned. to judged the annualKoestler trust exhibition, holding the awards for the winners of the Art Offender’s award.

He said he would back Corbyn as he was ‘doing something interesting for the political debate’ He added: ‘I think he’s gold. I think gold is a good thing to have in a leader’ Perry has been estranged from his mother since the 1990s. He considers that a person’s early experiences are important in shaping their aesthetic and sexuality. Perry has had solo exhibitions at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Barbican Centre, the British Museumand the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Arnolfini in Bristol, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan. He had an interest in film and exhibited his first piece of pottery at a New Contemporaries show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1980. In the months following his graduation he joined The Neo Naturists, a group started by Christine Binnie to revive the \”true sixties spirit – which involves living one’s life more or less naked and occasionally manifesting it into a performance for which the main theme is body paint\”. He was interviewed about the win and resulting press in Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World. In 2008 he was ranked number 32 in The Daily Telegraph’s list of the \”100 most powerful people in British culture\”. He has written a book about art, Playing to the Gallery, and published his illustrated Sketchbooks.