The Holburne Museum in Bath has launched a hunt for lost Grayson Perry Early Works, ahead of a planned exhibition featuring early pots and plates from the 1980s.
Photo © Richard Ansett
Grayson Perry is one of Britain’s best-known and well-loved artists. Working in tapestry, collage and ceramics, he explores a range of important themes, including issues of gender, identity and social class, presenting through his art a unique perspective on the world.
Grayson Perry and the Holburne are looking to reunite the early works, created between 1983 and 1994, that first made Grayson Perry’s name.
The resulting show will shine a light on Perry’s experimentation in ceramics and exploration of the medium’s potential.
Many of the artist’s earliest works were unrecorded at the time, and throughout the decades their exact whereabouts have become unknown. A number of works may have changed hands, or perhaps have been passed down to the next generation.
Grayson Perry and the Holburne in Bath have joined forces to launch an appeal to ask the art-loving public to get in touch with them if they have one of these early works and would be happy for it to be considered for an exhibition in 2020.
Grayson Perry explained: “When I started out making ceramics at evening classes, part of the reason I enjoyed it was that I could make artworks relatively quickly.
“In my first decade of exhibiting I would often show over sixty or seventy works, made over the course of a few months. I sold these works for modest sums and often gave away what was left.
“I was terrible at admin and photography so kept very little record of these early pieces. Most of these works were exhibited in London, though I also had shows in this period in Paris, New York and San Antonio, Texas.
“I was very excited when the Holburne Museum in Bath proposed a show of my ceramics from the eighties and early nineties as it would also be an opportunity to find and record the beginnings of my career.
“My record keeping hasn’t improved much: I recently moved house and found five pots in the loft which had been unseen since the eighties and a dozen plates from the early nineties in a cupboard under a sink!”
Holburne Museum Director Chris Stephens added: “We are thrilled to be working with such an innovative and influential artist as Grayson Perry in this unique way, calling on the public to effectively help us ‘crowdsource’ an exhibition.
“The Holburne is the ideal place to undertake this exhibition as we have a rich collection of ceramics from the past and, as a historic collection, it seems appropriate to take an historical view on the work of one of the great contemporary artists.”
Holburne curator Catrin Jones said: “This is a really exciting project, to try and reunite a wide range of Perry’s early works by getting the public involved in a global Grayson Perry treasure hunt!
“We already have works from Perry’s own collection and others promised for the exhibition – but we know there are lots more out there, so we are asking anyone who can help to get in touch with us. We are all looking forward to some exciting discoveries.”
Catrin has revealed they have a way of checking if a work is a genuine Grayson Perry. She said: “Every single one of Perry’s ceramics has a potter’s mark, in fact there are 39 individual ones he used between 1983 and 1994, so we will be able to quickly check if a work is authentic.”
If you have a 1980s or early 1990s Grayson Perry pot or plate that could be considered for inclusion in an exhibition in 2020 then the Holburne in Bath would like to hear from you. Contact the Museum via email at [email protected] and title your email ‘Grayson Perry Lost Works.’
