Animal Spirit (pink)

Maker

(artist)
born 1960

Title

Animal Spirit (pink)

Date of Production

2016

Dimensions

Height: 63.5 cm (sheet size)
Width: 77.3 cm (sheet size)

Accession Number

G.2017.XX.7

Mode of Acquisition

Charles Booth-Clibborn, gift, 2017

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

© Grayson Perry and Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd.

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords



Label Text

Although best known for his ceramics, Grayson Perry is also an accomplished printmaker. The fantastical beast in this etching - half-bear and half-bull - embodies the irrationality at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis. The beast's tangled innards allude to the ancient theory of the four humours, in which emotions or faculties were located in different organs. As Perry notes of the male-dominated financial sector, 'There seemed to be an idea... the market was entirely rational but we found out in the crash that it was just as prone to emotional weather as any human system.'

Perry printed the etching on different coloured papers. The use of pink paper here imitates the colour of the Financial Times, Britain's leading business newspaper.

Provenance

Paragon Press; gift to the Samuel Courtauld Trust by Charles Booth-Clibborn, 2017

Exhibition History

From the Baroque to Today: New Acquisitions of Works on Paper, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 23/02/2024-27/05/2024

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