Grayson Perry: The Pre-Therapy Years

A new examination of the early ceramic work of the world’s most famous potter, Grayson Perry, this book includes previously lost and unpublished pieces.

Grayson Perry was the first ceramicist to win the Turner Prize, the internationally renowned award for the best young British Artist. He rapidly established a unique brand as “the transvestite potter.” This book examines the plates, pots, and statues from the 1980s to the mid-1990s with which he established his career. Perry sold many of his early pieces for modest sums and subsequently lost track of their whereabouts. With the help of an international art treasure hunt this book brings together both his known and previously lost and undocumented pieces.

Accompanying Perry’s traveling exhibition, which opens at the Holburne Museum, Bath, in January 2020, this book features full color illustrations of his seminal ceramic works from this period. As well as an essay from the artist and critical essays from experts on Perry’s work.

100 color illustrations

Chris Stephens is the director of the Holburne Museum, Bath.

Catrin Jones is a curator specializing in historic and contemporary applied arts. She joined the V&A in 2020 as Chief Curator, V&A Wedgwood Collection.

Andrew Wilson is the Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary British Art at Tate Britain, London.