Tracey Emin
The bed, the tent, the neons, and forty years of putting her own life on the wall.
Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 and grew up in Margate. Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, the appliqued tent of 1995, was destroyed in the Momart fire; My Bed, shown at the Turner Prize in 1999, made her a national argument. Underneath the notoriety is a body of work with a consistent method: autobiography rendered in whatever medium suits it — monoprint, neon in her own handwriting, appliqued blanket, bronze, and latterly large, loose, extremely direct paintings of the female figure that have become the centre of the practice. She was made a Dame in 2024 and has built a studio and school in Margate.
The neons are the most frequently traded works and the most frequently misunderstood: they exist in editions, usually of three to ten plus proofs, in specified colours, and a different colour is a different work. Transformer, mounting and certificate should be present. Monoprints and drawings are unique and numerous. The paintings of the last decade are the top of the market. Blankets are unique and are textile condition problems. Emin has also produced a large volume of accessible print editions, which are not the same market as the unique work.
If you own a work by Tracey Emin
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.