Unique, or one of a number
With Emin the first question is not what a work is worth. It is what kind of thing it is, because that is what decides the rest.
Most artists’ work sorts itself at a glance: a print looks like a print, a painting looks like a painting. Emin’s does not. A monoprint is printed and is unique. A neon looks like a single object made once and is one of an edition of six. A blanket looks like a craft piece and is a major unique work.
So owners routinely have the category wrong before any question of value comes up, and the category is what settles the value. Almost everything below follows from that one distinction.
Five things to check
01Establish the class before the value
Unique or editioned is the first question and it decides everything after it. If there is a fraction — 3/10, 2/6 — it is an edition. If there is a hand-written title and a date and no fraction, it is very likely unique. Getting this wrong in either direction wastes weeks.
02On a neon, photograph the certificate and the transformer
Not just the lit tube. The certificate carries the edition and the specified colour, and the transformer is part of what is being sold. A neon offered without either can still be sold, but it is a different conversation and the estimate reflects it.
03Read the handwriting as part of the work
Her hand is the medium in the neons and in much of the work on paper, so a signature is not a separate mark added to a finished object the way it is with most artists. Photograph any inscription in full, including anything on the reverse, rather than cropping to the image.
04Look at a blanket in raking light and along its edges
Tilt it towards a window and look across the surface. Fading is the damage that matters most and it is the hardest to see head-on, and the stitching at the edges tells you whether it has hung under tension for years.
05Leave it alone until someone has seen it
Do not reframe, clean or have a neon rewired before a valuation. On textiles and on works on paper the damage from a well-meant intervention is usually permanent, and on a neon a non-original transformer is a disclosure you would rather not have to make.
Five bodies of work, five sets of questions
They do not price together, and they do not document alike.
- Monoprints and drawings — unique
- The commonest misunderstanding in her market, and the one that changes an estimate most. A monoprint is printed, but only once: the image is drawn into the plate and the pull exhausts it. There is no edition number because there is no edition. Owners describe these to us as prints and expect print money for them; they are unique works on paper, and they are valued as such. Look for a hand-written title and date rather than a fraction.
- Neons — editioned, and the colour is part of the edition
- Generally issued in editions of three to ten plus artist's proofs, in a specified colour. The colour is not a finish applied to a work that exists independently of it: the same phrase in pink and in blue are two separate editions with two separate values. A neon should arrive with its certificate, its original transformer and its mounting. A re-blown tube is a condition matter rather than a repair, and it is disclosed.
- Blankets and appliqué — unique
- Sewn, not printed, and unique. They are also textile conservation problems: light does irreversible damage to the fabrics, hanging distorts them over years, and past cleaning is usually visible to anyone who knows what to look for. Condition on these is not a footnote to the valuation, it is most of it.
- Print editions — screenprints, lithographs, etchings
- A large and genuinely separate market from the unique work, published across three decades by several houses and, in a significant number of cases, issued to raise money for a cause. The latter are real editions and are collected, but they were made to be affordable and they behave that way at resale. Publisher, year and edition size place a sheet; the image alone does not.
- Bronze and cast work — small editions
- Numbered, usually in short editions with proofs, and carrying the founder's marks that a specialist reads first. Patina is original and cleaning it is not reversible. These come to market less often than the works on paper and are correspondingly less familiar to the general saleroom.
Where to check an edition
The publisher that issued the edition is the reference, and the studio holds the records behind the unique work. We deliberately do not publish an edition table here: the printed output runs across three decades and several publishers, a good deal of it issued for causes rather than through galleries, and a partial list assembled from secondary sources would imply a completeness we could not stand behind.
Common questions
Is my Tracey Emin monoprint a limited edition?
No. A monoprint is a single pull — the image is worked into the plate and printing it exhausts it — so it is a unique work despite being printed. That is why there is no edition number on it. This is the single most common misunderstanding we see in her market, and it usually works in the owner's favour once it is corrected.
Does the colour of a neon matter?
It decides which edition you have. The same text in a different colour is a different work with its own edition size and its own market, not the same work in another finish. The certificate states the colour, which is one reason it matters as much as it does.
My neon has been rewired. Does that matter?
It is disclosed and it is felt in the estimate, though it rarely stops a sale. A re-blown tube is a more significant matter than a replaced transformer, because the tube is the work. Keep any original components you still have, even if they no longer function.
Who authenticates a Tracey Emin?
There is no standing authentication body of the kind Pest Control provides for Banksy. What a saleroom works from is the studio's own records together with publisher documentation, the original invoice and a clean ownership history. Where those line up nothing further is needed; where they do not, it is worth establishing the position before consigning rather than during.
I bought a signed print at a charity auction. What is it worth?
It depends entirely on which edition it belongs to, and benefit editions are usually larger and were priced to raise money rather than to be scarce. They are genuine works and they do trade, but they do not behave like the gallery-published editions and it is better to know that at the outset. Send the sheet, the margins and any accompanying paperwork.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with the artist, her studio, her publishers or any auction house. Nothing here is investment advice.
Send photographs of the work, any inscription and any certificate, and we will tell you what you have. What sets the value of a Tracey Emin covers what follows from it, and selling a Tracey Emin covers the sale itself.