Grayson Perry is one of Britain’s foremost contemporary artists. He is best known as a ceramicist, though his work extends into tapestry, performance, printmaking, sculpture, writing, and television. He trained at Braintree College of Further Education before completing a fine art degree at Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1982, turning his attention to pottery in 1983. By the close of that year he was already exhibiting in London, with subsequent shows in New York, Rome, and Tokyo through the 1980s, and by the early 1990s his ceramics were held in collections internationally.
Perry’s work is instantly recognisable: classically proportioned vessels rendered in rich, decorative colour, whose inviting surfaces give way on closer inspection to incisive, often provocative commentary on class, identity, and contemporary British life. It is this fusion of exquisite craftsmanship with conceptual rigour that has defined his practice and secured his place among the most significant ceramic artists of his generation.
His achievements include the Turner Prize in 2003, awarded for his ceramic work and a pivotal moment in establishing ceramics within the contemporary fine art canon. He was elected a Royal Academician in 2012 and awarded the Erasmus Prize in 2021. He has been knighted for his services to art, and his ceramic work has been exhibited at leading institutions worldwide, cementing his reputation as a defining figure in the field
Gallery - click images to enlarge
Sales Pitch
1987
Impressed and glazed stoneware
27.5 x 35.7 cm
One of Perry’s earliest word-based works, Sales Pitch takes the form of a plate whose entire surface is given over to a single, unbroken monologue where the artist is selling the viewer on the very piece they are looking at. Equal parts satire and confession, the text moves from brash self-promotion to a candid admission of financial need, laying bare the mechanics of the art market with characteristic wit. At its centre sit two of Perry’s pre-1992 potter’s marks, “100% ART” and “MADE IN UK.”
Reflecting on the piece, Perry has said:
‘Right from my very earliest ceramics I used words a lot. I found it easier to be funny with words but I enjoyed the look of text as well. This plate is a kind of minimalist joke, an artwork trying to sell itself. Looking back thirty years it all still rings true. I was a cocky bastard. I love the tone of desperation that creeps in towards the end; I really needed the cash to buy my next motorbike. In the centre are two of my pre-1992 potter’s marks, 100% Art and MADE IN UK. It represents my manifesto and is a very important piece.’
Provenance & Exhibition History Acquired directly from the artist at its debut exhibition, The Pre-Therapy Years (Holburne Museum, 2020, p.115), where it has remained in the same private collection since. The work has subsequently travelled extensively, exhibited at York Art Gallery; the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich; the National Museum of Norway (Nasjonalmuseet), for Grayson Perry: Fitting In and Standing Out; the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, for the retrospective Smash Hits (2023); and, most recently, the Wallace Collection, for Delusions of Grandeur.