Editorial

It was the turning point in Grayson Perry’s career.  Perry was a promising art student, experimental, edgy to the point of offensive, living in the squats of London, nightclubbing every night.   His then girlfriend asked him if he’d like to join a pottery class.  Grayson Perry had never heard anything quite as uncool... ‘naturally I agreed!’

But just how important these plates are to Perry’s career is not often mentioned.  When Grayson picked up the Turner Prize back in 2003 he proclaimed ‘it’s about time a transvestite potter won…’ hear, hear.  But the national treasure ceramicist, with pots fetching hundreds of thousands of pounds, first fired clay in the shape of plates… they were the kernel to the art megastar’s career.

Grayson Perry’s first plate

 That first Grayson Perry plate is in the English slipware style, the first thing he made in clay.  There are crosshatched motifs and a crucified figure in the middle, a coin in its groin has melted, ejaculated money as the artist put it himself.  In bold are the words ‘Kinky Sex’.  The artist has explained this away as he was ‘a bit young at the time’ yet Perry did go on to say it was a statement.  That he is interested in fetish, and indeed the odd spanked bottom reappears in many later works.  Though of course it would be hard to downplay the use of craft and erotic motifs in Grayson’s art.

Perry became a prolific plate maker in his early days.  Having more ideas than time meant that plates became the closest thing a ceramicist could have to a sketch pad.

Grayson Perry’s 100% art plate

The ‘100% Art’ plate was released by a number of museums in 2019 for Perry’s show ‘The Pre-Therapy Years’.   The exhibition reunited a number of Perry’s early ‘lost’ pots and plates.  It took a remarkable effort to put the exhibition together, having kept no record of these early works, at one point he even had to make an appeal on the BBC’s One Show.   

Self Portrait Cracked and Warped is an obvious precursor to the 100% Art Plate.   The self-deprecating text at the top is obviously very similar to the 100 Art plate.  The cracking and warping is accidental, a common occurrence in the firing process, especially for the novice as Grayson was… the happy accident lends drama to the piece, as Perry put it ‘the Gods of the kiln had passed judgment’.  Underneath is an upside-down portrait of Grayson Perry, a nod to one of the hot artists of the time George Baselitz.

The plate ‘Sales Pitch’ is even more obviously a precursor the 100% Art Plate.  Words featured heavily in Perry’s early work due to his interest in written culture.  It’s a funny plate, a Grayson Perry plate trying to sell itself, there’s even a tone of desperation towards the end as he needed some cash to buy a new motorbike.  In the centre are two potter’s marks ‘100% Art’ and ‘Made in UK’.

The Map of Essex plate

The Map of Essex plate is perhaps best described in Grayson Perry’s own words;

“Looking at my early work, I am amazed how many of the themes that were to become important in my career were present in these youthful ceramics. This plate must be one of the first map pieces I made, a form that I have used often in the last fifteen years or so. The stamped place names mainly refer to locations significant in my life. ‘High Beach’ (sic) is the site of the bikers’ tea hut in Epping Forest where I spent an awful lot of time in the 1990s. The painting of the suburban house is where I grew up in Bicknacre and the building above ‘Colchester’ is St Peter-on-the-Wall, one of Britain’s oldest churches and an inspiration for the House for Essex (2015) I designed with Charles Holland.”

The Map of Days plates are a beautiful series of four plates depicting scenes from the huge tapestry.

Claire as a Soldier plate

The first image in this article is the rather beautiful and in Grayson Perry’s words ‘pretty sophisticated’ Claire as a Soldier plate commemorates the artist's Transvestism.  Claire is Grayson Perry’s dress wearing alter-ego who nowadays tends to only come out for a special occasion.  His outlandish outfits are well known.  Far from being a woman locked in a man’s body Perry once quipped ‘you can spot I’m a man in a dress from a passing helicopter’.  But it wasn’t always so.  Perry has been taking to women’s clothing since he was a teenager, before he’d even heard the term transvestite.  Back then he was trying to slip under the radar, his ultimate goal was to walk down the road as a woman without anyone noticing.  It is this Claire that ‘Claire as a Soldier’ depicts.  There is Perry in his early transvestite form.  The look he desired was a modern woman in the 1980’s.  In his own words he was part Diana, part Thatcher, his locks a hair-sprayed helmet.  Claire is wearing a tunic with part of the painting by Theodore Gericault ‘An Officer of the Imperial Guard’.  It’s obviously a beautiful piece and reminiscent of his later work  If you’d like one for your own wall it’s rather fetchingly recreated as a very limited-edition Claire as a Soldier tea towel.

Lion Queen Charger

Grayson Perry’s Lion Queen Charger plate was made for the Jubilee.  The Queen has often featured in works by Perry. 

Indeed he was knighted in 2016.  Grayson was awarded a CBE.  Later he commented in his usual ascerbic manner ‘We Had the Queen visit yesterday.  I hope I look that good at 90’.

We have a number of Nan Goldin prints for sale.  She’s had quite the year having just been voted the most powerful person in the Art world.  So here’s a quick guide about how to buy Nan Goldin and a bit about why you really should be collecting this very important artist.

Nan Goldin Posters

It’s still quite easy to get your hands on quite a few Nan Goldin posters.  Posters are a great way to start your collection or to liven up a room with a large print.  Vintage posters are becoming increasingly collectable due to their rarity, some have become remarkably hard to find. 

We’ve a number of vintage posters.  If you wanted an original ‘Jabalowe Under the Mosquito Net, Luxor, Egypt, 2003’ you’d be looking at $15k.  We have this fabulous vintage poster available from 2004 have a look here - Nan Goldin vintage poster.  Similarly we have another great image of a birthday in the 1990’s from her Love Steams exhibition – Nan Goldin poster 1997.

Nan Goldin Prints

Goldin has produced a number of editioned prints and we have a range for sale.  Nan as a Punk, London was a release to commemorate the documentary about her work and her activism 'All the Beauty and all the Bloodshed'. 

Drugs on the Rug was released to raise funds for her group that took on the Sackler family and their abhorrent practices.  They were both limited editions and sold out in a matter of minutes.

Nan Goldin has produced a number of timed editions.  The beautiful Swan-Like Embrace seen above.  There is the fabulous Desert at Night, Aswan, Egypt which she released to raise funds for Palestine.  

Nan Goldin high-end prints

At the top of the market there are a few options, but we are more about the affordable side of the market.  You're looking around the $15k to $25k mark and there are a few galleries worth having a chat with.   Try the Marion Goodman gallery, Guts Gallery in London also recently had a piece.

Why Buy Nan Goldin?

Nan Goldin describes her work as ‘The diary I let people read’, she has collapsed the boundaries between her life and her art.  Her tender works are in the throes of life, they are empathetic the essence of the human condition.

From drag queens in the Seventies ‘I fell in love with them, literally.  They were the most beautiful people I’d ever seen’.  To the snatched moments of missing memories from her struggles with addiction to prescription medicines.  “I’m the only one left, all the people I was meant to grow old with have died.’ she laments.

In her own words Nan Goldin narrowly escaped the Oxycontin crisis.  She was prescribed the opioid after a surgery.  The first night she took the prescribed 40 mg pill it was too strong.  She was hooked overnight.  Soon 18 pills a day wasn’t enough.  Years of her life a blur.  While she lived, hundreds of thousands didn’t.  Oxycontin has contributed to more than 600,000 deaths in the US alone.  Nan decided she couldn’t watch another generation disappear.   She knew that the drug was made by Purdue Pharmaceuticals owned by the Sackler’s.  An enormously powerful family who in her words ‘they have washed their blood money through the halls of museums and universities around the world.’

It was highly likely that the talented photographer would destroy her career attacking a powerful family and some of the most important art institutions in the world.  But she did it anyway.

Nan Goldin’s battle with the Sackler family came to a head when she was offered a retrospective of her work by Britain’s National Portrait Gallery.  She told them that she wouldn’t let them have her work unless they refused a £1million donation from the Sackler’s.  She won.  Soon a whole raft of world-famous museums were refusing donations from them, and were taking down the plaques veering the Sackler’s name.  The Tate, The Louvre, The Guggenheim and many more fell suit. 

One thing is obvious.  Nan Goldin is not for sale.

Let’s face it, one Dan Brown novel is too much... but in Shrigley we trust.