Artist Grayson Perry has a flamboyant image. But his selection of British work for a show visiting Scarborough Art Gallery shows a reflective side, finds Roger Osborne

For an artist with such a high personal profile, the focus of this exhibition might seem a little strange. Grayson Perry hit the public eye in 2003 when he accepted the award of the Turner Prize, dressed as his female alter-ego Claire. He seemed the epitome of artist as celebrity. But this personal selection from the Arts Council collection features British artists in reflective and restrained mood.

The contrast will not be a surprise to anyone who has heard Perry talking about his work and about art. Unpopular Culture started as a blank canvas. The Arts Council asked Grayson Perry to make a personal selection from the 8,500 works in its collection. These are works by British artists, mainly from 1945 to the present, with a few from earlier decades.

I asked Perry how he went about making a choice from such a vast number. ‘The theme of the exhibition came about organically. From the start I found I was drawn to three categories – sculpture, photography and figurative painting – and from these I then tried to make a structure.’

The content of the pieces reflected his personal attraction to certain kinds of work, and a dislike of others. ‘The selection was a reaction against what I don’t like about modern art.’

You can figure out what this means from the exhibition itself, and from its title. The works are mainly drawn from the forties and fifties, the period before British art became fashionable. Perry avoids Pop Art, believing it reinforces the false cliché of Britain in the swinging sixties.

There is no space here either for the Britart that emerged in the late 1980s. Perry is clearly put off by the ‘art as statement’ and ‘artist as celebrity’ route that has characterised recent decades.

Instead he is drawn to the more delicate, lyrical and reflective qualities shown by British artists in the decades after 1945. ‘It was a different world,’ says Perry. ‘More bohemian, somehow outside the mainstream.’

The exhibition contains works by such luminaries as Paul Nash, L.S. Lowry, Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink, Frank Auerbach and Barbara Hepworth alongside less known artists.

There are two works by Grayson Perry himself: Queen’s Bitter, a recreation of a 1950s beer bottle complete with a pearly queen, and Head Of A Fallen Giant, a bronze skull embedded with images of what Perry calls Tourist Britain.

Unpopular Culture has been touring Britain since last year; don’t miss its visit to Scarborough Art Gallery.

Unpopular Culture runs from 16 May to 5 July

Home page pic: Tony Bartholomew