print
- Museum number
- 2005,0429.22
- Title
- Object: Map of an Englishman
- Description
-
Large-scale 'antique' map of irregular island with states of mind, actions etc instead of place names. 2004
Photogravure etching from four plates butted together and printed on one sheet of Rives Velin arches paper
- Production date
- 2004
- Dimensions
-
Height: 1120 millimetres
-
Width: 1500 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Grayson Perry, also known as 'Claire' in his transvestite alter ego, is best-known for his satirical ceramic pots, which won him the Turner Prize in 2003. This is his first etching. In its format it recalls a 17thC outline map. Instead of familiar place-names of towns and geographical features, Perry 'maps' the inner states of mind, phobias, desires and deviant practices of his fellow countryman in a highly amusing and caustic manner. The idea seems to have come from "The Map of Tenderness" which was published in London in 1678 as the frontispiece to the English edition of Madeleine de Scudéry's novel, "Clelia, an Excellent New Romance".
The artist drew his map directly on sheets of acetate sent to him by the printer Hugh Stoneman. The printer proposed to the artist the etching technique of dust-grain gravure. The type of acetate used is commercially known as true-grain with one side smooth and the other rough. All the fine details were drawn on the smooth recto side; the rough verso side was used for shading. The four acetate sheets were then transferred onto four plates.
Perry's huge map was printed on one sheet of paper from the four plates butted together by Hugh Stoneman at Stoneman Graphics, Penzance, Cornwall in an edition of fifty. It was published by Charles Booth-Clibborn of the Paragon Press in 2004 and first shown at the Frieze Art Fair in London that year. The moulding of the frame in which it is housed was specially designed by the artist to resemble the antique frames found in English country houses. This is an artist's proof of ten outside the edition of 50.
(For further commentary, see Etienne Lullin and Florian-Oliver Simm, "Contemporary Art in Print: The Publications of Charles Booth-Clibborn and his imprint The Paragon Press 2001-2006", London: The Paragon Press, Contemporary Editions Ltd, 2006, pp.325-26).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2007 Jun-Nov, BM, Recent Acquisitions Part I, no cat.
- Acquisition date
- 2005
- Acquisition notes
- Exhibited at the Frieze Art Fair, Regent's Park, London 2004
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2005,0429.22
