Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin was born in Croydon, England, in 1963 and grew up in Margate. She studied fashion at the Medway College of Design from 1980 to 1982 before completing a degree in printmaking at Maidstone College of Art in 1986. In 1987 she began postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Art in London, where she focused on painting. Emin destroyed much of her early work after graduating, but soon developed the diaristic, confessional approach that would define her practice across multiple media including installation, drawing, sculpture, painting, film, photography, and neon text.

Her work first gained prominence in the early 1990s through exhibitions and performances associated with the Young British Artists (YBAs). In 1993 she held her first solo exhibition, My Major Retrospective, at White Cube, London, which brought together personal documents, photographs, and ephemera. In 1997 her installation Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent appliquéd with names, was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition of YBA work from the Saatchi Collection. In 1999 she was nominated for the Turner Prize, where she presented My Bed, an installation of her own unmade bed surrounded by personal belongings, which became one of her most widely discussed works.

Emin has been recognized for her contribution to contemporary art through a number of professional honors. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2007, and in 2011 was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to visual arts. Her work is represented in public collections including Tate, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Tracey Emin’s career has been defined by the use of personal narrative as artistic material, expressed through diverse media that range from textile-based installations to monumental bronze sculptures. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United Kingdom and internationally, and she has continued to maintain a visible role in British cultural life through her participation in major exhibitions, her academic appointments, and her contributions to public art.

Major Solo Exhibitions

• 1993 – My Major Retrospective, White Cube, London

• 1997 – Tracey Emin, South London Gallery

• 2002 – This Is Another Place, Modern Art Oxford

• 2007 – Tracey Emin: 20 Years, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (touring)

• 2011 – Love Is What You Want, Hayward Gallery, London

• 2013 – She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea, Turner Contemporary, Margate

• 2015 – The Last Great Adventure is You, White Cube, London

• 2018 – The Fear of Leaving It Too Late, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

• 2020 – Detail of Love, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

• 2021 – The Loneliness of the Soul, Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Munch Museum, Oslo

Selected Group Exhibitions

• 1993 – Young British Artists II, Saatchi Gallery, London

• 1997 – Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London

• 1999 – Turner Prize Exhibition, Tate Gallery, London

• 2007 – Venice Biennale: British Pavilion, representing the United Kingdom

• 2015 – Drawing Room Biennial, London

• 2022 – Women in Abstraction, Centre Pompidou, Paris