A transvestite potter beat the creators of a pair of bronze sex dolls on Sunday to land the Turner, Britain?s most controversial art prize.

Brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman were hot favorites to win the 20,000 pound prize with their graphic depiction of oral sex. But the judges opted instead for Grayson Perry, a British ceramic artist who likes to dress up as a woman and call himself Claire.

Perry, sporting a blue Shirley Temple bouffant dress, said on accepting his award: ?It?s about time a transvestite potter won the Turner prize.? ?I think the art world had more trouble coming to terms with me being a potter than my choice of frocks.?

Given a kiss of congratulations by fellow artist Peter Blake, Perry said: ?I want to thank my wife Philippa because she has been my best sponsor, editor, support and mainly my lover.? Perry is the latest in a long line of controversial artists to land the prize.

Speaking before the award was announced he said: ?One of the reasons I dress up as a woman is my low self-esteem, to go with the image of women being seen as second-class. It is like pottery: that is seen as a second-class thing too.?

The Chapman brothers grabbed all the media attention in the run-up to the prize-giving with their bronze sculpture, which even prompted the Tate Britain gallery to warn: ?This is not recommended for children under the age of 16.?

Perry, a close second in both the betting and the shock tactics battle, took the prize with elegantly painted vases that boast such titles as We?ve Found The Body Of Your Child 2000.

That vase features an image of a distraught mother next to her lifeless baby. A man walking away appears to be the perpetrator of the crime.

The artist points out: ?Most people reading the title will think of pedophiles, but over 90 per cent of all child murders are committed by the parents.? The shocking images are only apparent from close up.

?A lot of my work has always had a guerrilla tactic, a stealth tactic,? Perry says. ?I want to make something that lives with the eye as a beautiful piece of art but, on closer inspection, a polemic or an ideology will come out,? said the artist, who as a teenager delighted in dressing up in his sisters? clothes.

The Turner stirs up a heated Is It Art? debate every year, and that notoriety generates publicity.

The shortlist makes the front pages of the newspapers as angry critics complain that the artists are just creating sensation for sensation?s sake.

However much the critics rail, thousands of fans flock to Britain every year to see for themselves. Pop superstar Madonna swore live on television when presenting the prize in 2001 to the conceptual artist Martin Creed.

His prize-winning work was a bare room with a light that switched on and off.

In 1998, Chris Ofili won with a Virgin Mary figure made of elephant dung. In 1995, Damien Hirst won with a pickled sheep. Another artist, Tony Kaye, once tried to submit a homeless steel worker as his entry.