Lincoln Museum's Grayson Perry tapestries exhibition opens

An exhibition of tapestries created by artist Grayson Perry exploring attitudes towards class is to open at Lincoln Museum.

The Vanity of Small Differences is inspired by 18th Century painter William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress.

Museum staff described the six artworks by the Turner Prize-winning artist as "almost like a massive comic strip".

The hand-coloured tapestries will be on display in Lincoln from Saturday until January next year.

Together, the tapestries tell the story of fictional character Tim Rakewell as he makes his way up through the British class system.

They were created in 2012 and elements of the tapestries were inspired by Perry's journey through Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells and The Cotswolds when he filmed a series for Channel 4 a decade ago.

Each tapestry was made of wool, cotton and silk on a mechanical loom, before being coloured in by hand.

Jenny Gleadell, exhibitions and interpretation officer at Lincoln Museum, said: "In these huge tapestries you'll find depictions of texting, family dinner parties and nights out - which seem totally at odds with this traditional method.

"Almost like a massive comic strip, you can follow the life of Tim Rakewell across the six panels, with elements of humour, heartache, sentimentality and tragedy stitched in to them."

The tapestries are on loan from the Arts Council Collection, British Council and Southbank Centre.