Tracey Emin valuation
What an Emin is worth turns on what kind of thing it is before it turns on anything else. Here is the order we look in.
Her name covers a wider range of objects than almost any contemporary artist a seller is likely to own: paintings, neons, appliquéd blankets, cast bronze, unique works on paper that look printed, and printed editions that look unique. So the name settles very little on its own. What settles it is the category, the medium and the documentation, and all three are usually answerable from photographs.
What sets the value
- Unique work, or one of an edition
- The largest division in her market and the one owners most often have the wrong way round. Monoprints, drawings, blankets and the paintings are unique. Neons, screenprints and the bronzes are editioned. A monoprint described to us as a print is the commonest version of this, and correcting it usually moves the estimate upwards rather than down.
- Medium
- The mediums do not track each other. The large paintings of the last decade sit at the top, then the neons, then the blankets and the bronzes, then the unique works on paper, then the published print editions. Two works of similar size and similar date can belong to quite different markets, and the medium is what decides which.
- Period
- The 1990s material carries the biography that made the name, and the paintings since the late 2010s are what the market has moved towards most recently. The middle years are collected on their own terms. Where a work sits in that sequence is a first-order question, not a detail.
- On a neon: colour, edition and completeness
- The colour is part of the work rather than a finish applied to it, so the same phrase in pink and in blue are two editions with two values. A neon should arrive with its certificate, its original transformer and its mounting; a re-blown tube is a condition matter and is disclosed. Text length and physical scale both bear on it too.
- The words themselves
- Her handwriting is the medium in a good deal of the work, so what a piece says is not separable from what it is. Some phrases are far more sought than others, and a work whose text is the one people know behaves differently from one that reads similarly but is not it.
- Condition, and what it means per medium
- Textiles fade and distort, and past cleaning is usually visible. Works on paper mark and light-strike. Neons fail electrically, which is repairable, and crack, which is not. Bronze patina is original and should not be cleaned. Condition is judged against what the medium normally looks like at that age.
- Provenance and documentation
- Where the work has been since it left the studio, and what came with it. There is no standing authentication body for Emin of the kind Pest Control provides for Banksy, so the invoice, the gallery of first sale and a clean ownership chain carry more weight here than they would elsewhere.
What we do with it
A valuation is only useful if it leads somewhere. We compare what the work is likely to achieve across the international and regional salerooms, weigh sale dates and settlement periods against each other, and negotiate the seller's terms rather than accept a published rate card. All paperwork and remittance stays in your name. Selling a Tracey Emin covers the routes and the timetable, her editions covers which category a work belongs to, and what selling at auction actually costs sets out every fee that comes off the hammer price.
Common questions
How do I get a Tracey Emin valued?
Photographs of the work, of any inscription in full and of any certificate or invoice are enough to begin. For a neon, include the certificate and the transformer rather than only the lit tube. There is no charge, and a valuation carries no obligation to proceed.
Is my monoprint worth less than a print?
Almost always the opposite. A monoprint is a unique work — the image is drawn into the plate and one pull exhausts it — where a print edition may run to several hundred sheets. Owners tell us they have a print, and establishing that it is a monoprint is usually good news.
Does it matter which colour my neon is?
Yes, and more than most people expect. The colour is specified in the edition, so the same text in another colour is a different work with a different edition size and its own market. It is one of the first things we check.
I have lost the certificate for a neon. Can I still sell it?
Usually, though expect it to be harder and for that to show in the estimate. The gallery of first sale, the original invoice and a documented ownership history all carry weight. It is worth establishing the position before consigning rather than three weeks into one.
What does it cost to sell at auction?
Seller's commission, insurance, cataloguing and, if the work does not sell, an unsold fee. We set out how each of those works on our selling at auction page, and we negotiate them on your behalf rather than accepting a published rate card.
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 images and any paperwork to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below. A few photographs are enough to begin.