Reclining Artist
Maker
born 1960
Title
Reclining Artist
Date of Production
2017
Medium
Colour etching
Dimensions
Height: 67.1 cm
Width: 100.5 cm
Width: 100.5 cm
Accession Number
G.2020.XX.2
Mode of Acquisition
Charles Booth-Clibborn, gift, 2020
Credit
The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Copyright
© Grayson Perry and Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd.
Location
Not currently on display
Keywords
Label Text
Grayson Perry, RA (b. 1960) is best known for his ceramics, which combine traditional techniques and forms with contemporary subject matter and which won him the Turner Prize in 2003. A somewhat lesser known, but no less important, facet of his oeuvre is prints, which have been published by Paragon Press since 2004, and for which he was elected to the Royal Academy in 2011. Working primarily in etching and woodcut, Perry’s prints have earned comparisons with those of William Hogarth for their caustic wit, visual inventiveness and confrontation of contemporary concerns, particularly issues of class and taste, gender and sexuality.
In this typically richly detailed etching, Perry depicts himself as both artist and model, reclining nude on a sofa in his studio and surrounded by other works of art, both finished and in progress, various studio paraphernalia and other objects of personal significance. In Perry’s own words, it is ‘both an idealized fantasy and also the messy reality’. Perry’s pose is an overt nod to Titian’s Venus of Urbino and Manet’s Olympia, although he has combined his own sexual identity and that of his female alter ego, Claire.
In this typically richly detailed etching, Perry depicts himself as both artist and model, reclining nude on a sofa in his studio and surrounded by other works of art, both finished and in progress, various studio paraphernalia and other objects of personal significance. In Perry’s own words, it is ‘both an idealized fantasy and also the messy reality’. Perry’s pose is an overt nod to Titian’s Venus of Urbino and Manet’s Olympia, although he has combined his own sexual identity and that of his female alter ego, Claire.
Provenance
Paragon Press; gift to the Samuel Courtauld Trust by Charles Booth-Clibborn, 2020
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