b. 1963, London, UK
Lives and works in London, UK
There can be few artists who reveal the intimate details of their life so powerfully and with such candour as Tracey Emin. Tracey Emin’s art is one of disclosure, using her life events as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework, neons and sculpture. Emin reveals her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in candid and, at times, excoriating work that is frequently both tragic and humorous.
Emin’s work has an immediacy and often sexually provocative attitude that firmly locates her oeuvre within the tradition of feminist discourse. By re-appropriating conventional handicraft techniques – or ‘women’s work’ – for radical intentions, Emin’s work resonates with the feminist tenets of the ‘personal as political’. Her interest in the work of Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele particularly inform Emin’s paintings, monoprints and drawings, which explore complex personal states and ideas of self-representation through manifestly expressionist styles and themes.
In 1999 she was nominated for the Turner Prize, and in 2007 represented Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Emin has exhibited extensively including solo exhibitions at Tate Modern, London, UK (2026); Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (2025); Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (2025); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany(2023); Munchmuseet, Oslo, Norway( 2021); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020); Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2019), Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2017); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2013); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2012); Hayward Gallery, London (2011); Kunstmuseum Bern (2009); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga, Spain (2008); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2003); and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2002). In 2007 Emin represented Great Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale and her installation My Bed has been included in ‘In Focus’ displays at Tate Britain with Francis Bacon (2015), Tate Liverpool with William Blake and also at Turner Contemporary, Margate alongside JMW Turner (2017). In 1999 she was nominated for the Turner Prize. In 2011, Emin was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and in 2012 was made Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts.
Emin’s work can be found in many of the world’s most prestigious public collections, including the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, British Museum, London, Camden Arts Center, London, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Denver Art Museum, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, Hara Museum, Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art, New York, National Portrait Gallery, London, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Saatchi Collection, London, San Francisco Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, London and Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis.