Grayson Perry: Help me find my lost works
GRAYSON PERRY has announced that there are “dozens” of his lost works in households across the world, as he called for the owners to come forward. The potter, 58, has become one of Britain’s best-known artists since winning the Turner Prize in 2003. However, he has lost trace of many of the works he made during evening classes more than 20 years ago, which he sold for “modest sums” or even gave away. The Holburne Museum in Bath is asking anyone with a pot or plate created between 1983 and 1994 to get in touch for a new exhibition. Perry said: “In my first decade of exhibiting, I would often show over 60 or 70 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.”
In 2016, one of Perry’s vases from 1999 sold for £112,500. His “Chris Huhne” vase, inspired by the former Liberal Democrat politician and smashed and mended with gold, sold for £120,000.
A number of Perry’s works may have changed hands or been passed down to the next generation.
Chris Stephens, the director of the Holburne Museum, said: “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.”
Perry’s ceramics have a potter’s mark, which the gallery will use to check that they are genuine. Anyone who has one of the works can email curator@holburne.org with the subject “Grayson Perry lost works”.