Bringing history full-circle, the summer exhibition at Pitzhanger Manor is a well-placed satire on class caste and the wealth of contemporary society.
From July to December 2024, this exhibition brings Perry’s six large-scale tapestries to a building where William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress (the original inspiration behind Perry’s pieces) was originally purchased and displayed. Not one to shy away from the critique of an environment in which he is firmly embedded, Sir Grayson Perry CBE RA Hon FRIBA is an “internationally celebrated chronicler of contemporary life”, drawing us into intricately designed works of art with his characteristic humour and reflexive perspective.
Tackling universally human subjects such as identity, gender, social status, sexuality and religion, with autobiographical references to his childhood, family, and trademark style, Perry questions décor and decorum, caste and taste, profit and purpose, as well as the role and status of the artist and the artisan.
Playing To The Gallery
Birthed in 2012, this set of beautifully interwoven tapestries offers an explicitly modern re-telling of William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress: a series of eight moralising paintings depicting the riches-to-rags tale of Tom Rakewell in 18th century London.
Hogarth’s original paintings were bought by Sir John Soane’s wife 222 years ago for display at their home, Pitzhanger Manor. After financial and familial struggles, the Soanes subsequently moved, taking their prophetic purchases to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. However, Pitzhanger continues to display the full series of framed engravings from A Rake’s Progress in its original setting – on the vibrant red walls of the Soane’s drawing room.
Visitors to the exhibition are in the unique position to be able to compare and contrast both intricately detailed tales in the home of Hogarth’s series. Taking the original works as a starting point, each of Perry’s tapestries depicts a corresponding fable, equally rich in detail and symbolism.
Weaving the classic “class journey” of the fictional protagonist Tim Rakewell, they include many of the characters, incidents and objects Grayson Perry encountered on his journeys throughout Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells and The Cotswolds for the BAFTA award-winning television series All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry.
Perry’s work captures the nuances of British life, from the aspirations and anxieties of the working class to the pretensions of the upper class. Full of references to contemporary culture, they comment on social norms and values amidst the prevailing impacts of technology, social signalling, and the commodification of identity.
The Descent Of The Decent Man
In Expulsion from Number 8 Eden Close, a pre-university Tim and his middle-class girlfriend are guilty of a sin, just like Adam and Eve in Masaccio’s The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (c. 1425). In Perry’s version, the guilty protagonists move from one sphere to the next as Jamie Oliver, the god of social mobility, smiles down on them.
The text below reads: “(in the voice of Tim’s girlfriend): I met Tim at College, he was Such a Geek. He took me back to meet his mother and Stepfather. Their house was so clean and Tidy, not a speck of dust… or a book, apart from her god, Jamie. She says I have turned Tim into a Snob. His parents don’t appreciate how bright he is. My father laughed at Tim’s accent but welcomed him onto the sunlit uplands of the middle classes. I hope Tim loses his obsession with money.”
At once accessible and profound, Perry incorporates numerous references to art history, pop culture, and everyday objects, all of which serve to highlight the differences and similarities across the sturdily stereotypical strata of society. His portrayal of Tim’s life is both humorous and tragic, capturing the struggles and triumphs that define the human experience.
Grayson Perry admits that he is of course, not immune from judgement himself – as the psychoanalysts say, “if you spot it, you’ve got it” – and his thoughts on everything from power to physical appearance, from emotions to a brand new Manifesto for Men, are shot through with honesty, tenderness, a self-aware hypocrisy and the belief that, for everyone to benefit, upgrading masculinity (or our patriarchal culture-bound expectations of love, agency and success) has to be something that we decide to do for each-other and ourselves. We have nothing to lose but our hang-ups.
“The tapestries tell the story of class mobility, for I think nothing has as strong an influence on our aesthetic taste as the social class in which we grow up. I am interested in the politics of consumerism and the story of popular design but, for this project, I focus on the emotional investment we make in the things we choose to live with, wear, eat, read, or drive. Class and taste run deep in our character – we care. This emotional charge is what draws me to a subject.” – Grayson Perry
