ONE of my favourite ever things was being COUNTRY LIFE’s page three!’ declares Sir Grayson Perry, the award-winning artist and television presenter who appeared on the Frontispiece in February 2020. ‘It now has pride of place in my loo.’ Leaning against a stone wall in tartan skirt, quilted jacket and headscarf, his alter-ego, Claire, looked quite at home in her rural setting. When I meet Sir Grayson at his studio in north London in June, however, he is in work mode, dressed in clay-smeared joggers and a neon-pink T-shirt. The only vestige of Claire is his immaculate set of sky-blue nails, evidence of her attendance at the Royal Academy of Arts Annual Dinner and Summer Exhibition earlier in the week. Yet country Claire is still on his mind, as she is currently being emblazoned on thousands of tins of shortbread in anticipation of his major exhibition ‘Smash Hits’, opening at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh on July 22. ‘I always like lots of merch,’ he explains, as he dissolves into fits of laughter.
This story is from the July 19, 2023 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the July 19, 2023 edition of Country Life UK.
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