Tracey Emin Value: Top Prices Paid at Auction

Emin's My Bed, her most expensive artwork at auction, reveals deep personal emotions and grief after a relationship separation. Created during a breakdown in 1998, she realised her chaotic bedroom could become an installation, describing it as “absolutely brilliant.” Controversial and raw, My Bed was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999. Collector Charles Saatchi later auctioned it at Christie’s in 2014, where it achieved £2.5 million, doubling its high estimate and setting a new record for Emin.

In October 2022, Emin’s Like A Cloud Of Blood (2022) achieved £2.3 million at Christie’s 20th/21st Century Evening Auction, more than doubling its estimate. Though it didn’t surpass her record for My Bed (1998), the sale marked a major milestone in her career as a record price for a painting. Emin dedicated proceeds from the painting to fund TKE Studios, an artist residency program she established by converting an old bathhouse into studios. This charitable initiative further highlights Emin’s commitment to supporting the next generation of artists.

I Told You Don't Try to Find Me (2007) is a pivotal work in Emin’s career, created when she represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. This piece marks her return to large-scale painting, a commitment deepened by her battle with cancer in 2020. Emin’s calligraphic prose merges with the image of a reclining woman, blending confession and strength. In February 2023, I Told You Don’t Try to Find Me sold for £1.4 million at Christie’s, a significant feat amid the economic challenges of that year.

“I have always treated my blanket-making more like a painting in terms of building up layers and textures,” Emin said of her textile artworks. “I have never called them quilts. I have always called them blankets. They were most definitely blankets at the beginning because they were made with the intention of going on a bed.” When she sold her first blanket artwork Hotel International in 1994, Emin went to bed and “cried at the idea of [the work] going away”.

Mad Tracey From Margate. Everyone’s Been There, created in 1997, stitches together memories of the artist’s childhood growing up in the coastal town of Margate (which she writes more about in her memoir, Strangeland, published in 2005). The heartfelt early work was offered at Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London on 16 October 2014, where it sold for £722,500.

Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (1996) is a landmark piece by Emin, created during a three-week performance at Stockholm’s Galleri Andreas Brändström. Working nude before gallery visitors, Emin produced 12 canvases, seven body paintings, and 79 works on paper, initially planning to burn them in a final ceremony but ultimately deciding otherwise. The entire collection, including her art and music, sold for £722,500 at Christie’s London in February 2005.

Authenticity and raw emotion define Emin's You Are There Now (2017), a painting that navigates themes of love, loss, and sorrow. Reflecting on her process, Emin has commented on searching for themes in her work, ”I'm looking for it in the pictures; I'm looking for it in the paintbrush.” This work sold for £655,203 at Sotheby’s New York in The Now Evening Auction, far surpassing its high presale estimate of $320,000.

Created four years after her record-breaking My Bed, To Meet My Past reflects Tracey Emin's attempt to confront personal memories, with phrases like “I cannot believe I was afraid of ghosts, Tracey Emin 1969-1974” stitched onto the sheet and “Weird sex” appliquéd on the headboard. The installation was swiftly acquired after its creation in 2002 and resurfaced at Christie’s London in October 2013, where it achieved £481,875.

Emin and singer George Michael first met at London’s Ivy restaurant in the mid-1990s, having already admired each other’s work. The two shared an “outrageous relationship,” filled with playful teasing, according to Michael’s former partner, Kenny Goss. Michael and Goss owned several of Emin’s works, including Hurricane, a personal favourite. When Michael’s art collection went up for auction at Christie’s London in March 2019, Hurricane sold for £431,250–more than double its high estimate of £180,000, with proceeds supporting Michael’s philanthropic legacy.

“Quilt-making has always been considered a craft, never elevated to high art... [It] involves a lot of thought and love. The time spent in the process brings about many reflections on life,” Emin once said about her artistic process. I Think It’s In My Head is a deeply confessional piece, driven by emotions of “fear, love, lust, jealousy, hate,” expressed through embroidered text. This powerful work sold for £405,000 at Sotheby’s London in March 2019.

Since 1995, Emin has transformed snippets of her handwritten notes into neon artworks, turning personal thoughts and emotions into illuminated installations. Growing up in the seaside town of Margate, Emin was influenced by neon fairground signs and storefronts—now, she uses the same techniques to convey her inner world. I Listen To The Ocean And All I Hear Is You, created in 2018, sold for $495,000 (£378,675) at Phillips New York in September 2018, more than doubling its $200,000 high estimate.