Grayson Perry Chelmsford, Essex, England, b. 1960
78 3/4 x 157 1/2 in
The final episode in Perry’s monumental tapestry series depicts the aftermath of a tragic car accident. Tim has died in the arms of a stranger while his glamorous second wife stands apart, stunned and bloodstained, beside the wreckage of a mangled Ferrari.
The composition draws directly on Rogier van der Weyden’s Lamentation (c. 1460) reworking its central motif of mortality for a contemporary setting. Where van der Weyden places a skull in the centre foreground, Perry substitutes it for a broken smartphone, a pointed echo of the first tapestry in the series. This substitution closes the narrative loop by linking Tim’s origins and demise while underscoring the fragility of the values that have shaped his life.
