A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlight

‘When I met Grayson Perry, I like to say I was a burnt out celebrity photographer,’ says photographer Richard Ansett. ‘I was dreading another ego that was going to drain me of my soul and energy. And of course, I met this fascinating subject, and I was very interested in exploring where the authenticity was.’

It marked the beginning of a fruitful partnership, the results of which are now the subject of a selling exhibition at Sotheby’s. ‘A Portrait of Grayson Perry,’ features photographs taken over the course of their more than decade-long working relationship.

Ansett first met with Perry in 2013 at the Tate Modern, and the resulting portrait was immediately acquired by the National Portrait Gallery. ‘Grayson was suddenly meeting a photographer that wasn't responding in the way that he was used to photographers responding to him,’ says Ansett. ‘I'm not particularly kind, or particularly interested in putting you at ease. I'm slightly abrupt, and he’s clutching at his handbag, looking like he's about to be mugged. But before that first portrait I went online and Googled him, and all I found was these sort of beaming photographs – and I was like, this is a very serious, important artist in a dress. And I think my queerness comes into play there as well. I was thinking about what would be an interesting portrait for me to do with him. I think that's true of Grayson. He allows you to project whatever you want onto him. He's a very interesting character in that sense, you think he's something, but it's mostly your projection.’

It is rare for Ansett to return to a subject after taking their portrait – ‘as a younger photographer, I used photography of a way of exploring intimacy with my subjects, and then just running away and disappearing, never really returning to the scene of the crime,’ he says – and with Grayson, the success of the first portrait raised the stakes. But unite they did, and their working relationship over the years has become increasingly collaborative, the culmination of mutual trust and respect visible in the playful results.

‘It all comes from Grayson,’ Ansett adds. ‘He says, What do you want? He's incredibly impatient of indecision, because he doesn't have a lot of time, but he wants you to say how you would do it. What do you want to do? And he'll say yes or no to it. With the concept, I started to have the opportunity to create work which I always knew could be bigger than what they were being used for. So Birth, for instance, of him holding the baby, I just had this vision of something that could be great if we could pull it off. I'm hugely driven, and I think that's one of the reasons why I get on very well with him. When I’m with a camera, I'll burn your house down to get a great photograph. He responds very well to that, because he knows that's the only thing that matters between us in that moment is me getting a picture, and even he can't get in the way of that.’

The photographs here, from Birth and Death to Land of Hope and Glory, encapsulate Perry’s ability to both shine a light on his success and power, while simultaneously unpicking it. ‘I think I am a portraitist, but I still like to document and explore someone's personality within that permission that they've given me,’ Ansett says. ‘And I think even behind all the makeup and the frocks, I'm still looking for complexity.’

A Portrait of Grayson Perry is at Sotheby’s from 28 March - 17 April. Tickets for a panel discussion on 31 March are available here

Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur is at The Wallace Collection from 28 March-26 October 2025