British Museum launches first show co-curated with regional galleries

Drawings by Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Rachel Whiteread and an early depiction by Grayson Perry of his transvestite alter-ego, Claire, are to go on display as part of a British Museum exhibition that could herald a new way of collaborating with regional galleries.

Instead of creating the show in-house and then sending it out on tour, the museum has co-curated it with the venues it will be visiting.

The process has been genuinely collaborative and democratic, said Isabel Seligman, a curator of prints and drawings at the British Museum. “It has been a rewarding, amazing experience and has given us new perspectives on the collection.”

The contemporary drawings exhibition shines light on a less well known part of the museum’s collection. “They are finally going to get the limelight they deserve,” said Seligman. “There are some really fantastic works by some of the most important contemporary artists working today.”

One of those is Perry, a trustee of the museum, who is delighted the show is taking place. “Since the dawn of time, drawing has been and still is a vital and central component of visual art,” he said. “How else would I get an image out of my head and into the world?”

The untitled Perry drawing, made when he was around 24, is a mix of crayon, watercolour, collage and glitter. It shows his alter-ego Claire in a ra-ra skirt and hoodie, creeping away like an animal from symbols of manliness and heteronormativity.

More than 50 drawings will be in the show, some of them going on display for the first time, such as a watercolour by the Belgian artist Jan Vanriet titled Ruchla. It shows a Jewish girl and was part of a series he made based on mugshot photographs of Jews deported from the Dossin barracks in Belgium to the death camps at Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944.

Other highlights include a satirical Philip Guston drawing made when US president Richard Nixon was at the height of his popularity, two years before Watergate. The flaccid, testicular depiction of Nixon suggests Guston was never a fan.

Seligman has co-curated the show with colleagues from the venues it will be visiting after the British Museum – the Oriental Museum in Durham; Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; and Cooper Gallery, Barnsley.

Katy Freer, exhibitions officer at the Glynn Vivian, said working on the show had been an “absolute delight”. She added: “At a time when regional venues can struggle with funding, this collaboration with the British Museum will bring some fantastic works to Swansea and it will be great to see them with works from our own collection.”

• Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to Now is at the British Museum from 12 September and then touring in 2020-21.