Sometimes I Feel Beautiful
Sometimes I Feel Beautiful
Signed Print
Tracey Emin
£30,000-£45,000Value Indicator
$60,000-$90,000 Value Indicator
$60,000-$80,000 Value Indicator
¥280,000-¥420,000 Value Indicator
€35,000-€50,000 Value Indicator
$300,000-$450,000 Value Indicator
¥5,830,000-¥8,750,000 Value Indicator
$40,000-$60,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Digital Print
Edition size: 6
Year: 2000
Size: H 123cm x W 84cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2020 | Sotheby's New York | United States | |||
| March 2016 | Sotheby's London | United Kingdom | |||
| November 2015 | Phillips New York | United States | |||
| October 2005 | Sotheby's London | United Kingdom | |||
| May 2004 | Sotheby's New York | United States |
Meaning & Analysis
This signed screen print from 2000 is a limited edition of 6 from Tracey Emin’s Polaroids collection. The vertical print shows the artist as she lies naked in a full bathtub. Her head is reclined towards the viewer, her eyes are closed while her hands hold her legs together in a seemingly infantile and foetal pose.
Self-portraiture and autobiography lie at the core of British artist Emin’s project. In works like her Writings, Emin’s confessions take the form of open-ended letters, whereas in works like her Nude Self-Portraits, they are enacted through the tentative and rushed contours of pencil and ink drawings. In Sometimes I Feel Beautiful, Emin’s portraiture takes on new forms and new meanings. The image is an enlarged Polaroid snapshot of Emin where the artist is shown lying naked in her bathtub, with her face reclined towards the viewer. Emin appears with her eyes closed, as if sleeping, while her hands hold her legs in a reassuring and relaxed pose.
Interestingly, this image portrays the artist in a blissful state of meditation and greatly contrasts the satirical, confrontational tones typically projected throughout her work. The tranquillity and serenity of the image is heightened by the title, Sometimes I feel Beautiful, as an optimistic note is conveyed - a rarity in Emin's raw and honest productions. This artwork distinguishes itself from her other works and is testimony to Emin’s ability to shift from her ironic and painfully raw images to a temporary moment of acceptance.
Tracey Emin, born in 1963, stands as a fearless provocateur in the contemporary art scene. A trailblazer of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement in the late 1980s, the artist has sparked conversation and controversy for decades. Confronting themes of love, trauma and femininity with great vulnerability, Emin's work is a visceral tapestry of her life and has forged an intimate dialogue between artist and audience. In 1999, this raw approach to storytelling won her a nomination to the Turner Prize and, in 2007, it got her a coveted spot as a Royal Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA).
