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Grayson Perry told today how he was inspired to create a pot after watching open-heart surgery at one of Britain's top hospitals.
He recorded the drama at Harefield hospital on a pot called Urn For The Living which will be auctioned this week to raise money for research into the most complex and risky cardiac procedures, in which the hospital specialises.
The Turner Prize winner was among artists such as the Chapman Brothers and Rachel Howard who watched surgery at the invitation of cardiac surgeon Jullien Gaer.
Perry said: "I thought I might be squeamish, but it's absolutely fascinating to see these incredibly dangerous operations.
"When people have operations they are all covered up apart from the bit they are operating on. You haven't a clue who it is - you don't know whether they're black or white. There's amazing craftsmanship - it's like doing embroidery on prosciutto. The moment that really stuck with me is they stop the heart and it deflates like a balloon in the chest cavity." The "sense of mortality" stayed with him. "It was a privilege to see it," he said. Perry's pot has an estimate of £30,000 to £50,000.
Conrad Shawcross, whose sculptures are often working machines, said he was fascinated by the teamwork. "There were similarities with my practice in the sense that the way I work is with a number of guys who hand each other wrenches and spanners when doing fiddly interior gearings on machines."
The work he has donated, Perimeter Series, Arrangement 3c, is like a symmetrical explosion which he describes as having a centre "like the heart is the centre of the body". It has an estimate of £8,000 to £12,000. Harefield, in Middlesex, will benefit from nine lots at Sotheby's contemporary art auction in New Bond Street on Friday, one of several sales coinciding with the Frieze art fair.
The most valuable gift is an Anselm Kiefer, called En Sof, with an estimate of £150,000 to £200,000, and the total upper estimate of the lots is £429,000.
