Grayson Perry – Reclining Artist (Etching)

2017

This is me, both as artist and model in my studio. I wanted to make something in the tradition of the reclining nude. I’m hoping it will be popular with educated middle-class people who might enjoy spotting the art-historical references within it. Reclining Artist is both an idealized fantasy and also the messy reality. It is perhaps me expressing my desire to be a sex object and also show off my cultural capital and boyish paraphernalia. The sofa is draped in a test piece of my 2011 tapestry Map of Truths and Beliefs. Alan Measles, my teddy bear and metaphor for masculinity and god, appears as a sculpture, as an inflatable and on a dress hanging on the wall. The cat is called Kevin.

Medium: Colour etching
Size: H70.3 x W102.7cm
Edition: 42/68
Signed: Yes by the artist and numbered on the reverse