Grayson Perry’s modern tale of social mobility reimagines a Rakes Progress

Six large-scale tapestries by Grayson Perry telling a tale of a modern Rake’s Progress have gone on display at Pitzhanger Gallery in West London, where the original engravings were once displayed.

Taking Hogarth’s famed engravings as a starting point, Perry’s tapestries depict a corresponding fable of class, taste and social mobility.

Weaving the complex ‘class journey’ of the fictional protagonist, Tim Rakewell, the tapestries include many of the characters, incidents and objects Grayson Perry encountered on his journeys throughout Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells and The Cotswolds for the television series All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry.

Although the series retells the famous Rakes Progress, the tapestries look to other artworks for their individual designs – such as the modern adoration of the magi or the carpet that looks very much inspired by Munch’s The Scream.

As tapestries, you can stand back and take in the whole, but there are a lot of tiny details that reward closer inspection.

Perry has retained the 18th-century style of “speech bubble,” with cursive script weaving around the place. In the downfall portrait, look for the character carrying a copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The car in one has a perfectly cut-off license plate, which sends a message about motor vehicle pollution. Maybe I am overthinking it, but is a mirror in one of the tapestries referencing the Arnolfini Portrait? The protagonist is a modern-day computer genius, and the newspaper A Geek’s Progress directly references this.

The aesthetic style will appeal to some and not to others, but they are both a magnificent design and work of physical craftmanship in making them.

The exhibition, Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences is at Pitzhanger Gallery in Ealing Broadway until early December.

Adults: £13.20 | Students/Art Pass: £6.60 | Children/Universal credit/pensions: Free

For local residents, entry is free on Sunday 10am–noon and first Thursday of the month 5–8pm

You can book tickets to Pitzhanger Mansion and Gallery here.

The Vanity of Small Differences is jointly owned by the Arts Council Collection and the British Council Collection, gift of the artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, with the support of Channel 4 Television, the Art Fund and Sfumato Foundation with additional support from Alix Partners.