The Tate’s jury handed a £20,000 cheque to Grayson Perry, an artist dressed like Shirley Temple. Moments after announcing its choice, the gallery faced accusations that it had exhibited a complete lack of sensitivity.

Perry’s subject matter is at first disguised by the pots’ colourful nature, but they bear titles such as We’ve Found the Body of Your Child and feature obscene language.

Perry wore a purple satin dress with a green bow, embroidered with rabbits and words such as “sissy”.

Accepting his prize, he said: “It’s about time a transvestite won the Turner Prize.

“This is my Turner Prize acceptance dress . . . It has motifs of innocent childhood. The world is a scary place when you’re a sensitive plant like me . . . People get humour and reality muddled up. I use humour in my work.”

The Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain carries a warning: “Some of the works in this exhibition are sexually explicit and not recommended for children under 16.”

Outside, a group of artists known as the Stuckists, who campaign for traditional artistry, staged a protest with a blow-up sex doll purchased from a Soho sex shop. They asked whether there was any difference between the Turner Prize and a sex shop.

But Katharine Stout, the Tate curator, said that there was no intention to shock, even though the annual prize thrives on controversy, with Chris Ofili’s elephant dung among former winners in its 20-year history.

The judges, chaired by Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate director, took four hours to come to their decision. They agonised over whether to give it to the Chapman brothers, whose graphic installation includes two lifesize inflatable dolls engaged in oral sex, Anya Gallaccio, who attaches apples to a dead tree, or Willie Doherty, whose video about Northern Ireland shows a man running across a bridge at night.

The judges hailed Perry for “his use of the traditions of ceramics and drawing in his uncompromising engagement with personal and social concerns”.

“Perry employs a typically English satirical humour, both in the art itself and when discussing it, to deflect the seriousness of his subject matter . . . But at the heart of his practice is a passionate desire to comment on deep flaws within society. Often his themes reflect tabloid press obsessions — sex scandals, missing children, crime.

“They pointed to the imbalanced way these familiar news items are handled; a child missing in the height of summer may cause a media frenzy, yet throughout the rest of the year, children are abused, even killed, within the family home without making the local papers.”

David Lee, editor of The Jackdaw, said that Perry was simply a poor artist: “A lot of desultory illustrations with captions. Anyone can make pots like that. He relies on sensational subject-matter.”

But Colin Tweedy, the director of Arts and Business, said: “The morality of the general public and the vision of artists are getting wider and wider, not narrower.”

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