Art by Tracey Emin

Emin's most famous work is, literally, her bed. My Bed (1998) is the actual unmade bed she spent days in during a period of severe depression, surrounded by empty vodka bottles, used condoms, and stained underwear, exhibited exactly as it was. Charles Saatchi bought it for £150,000; it sold again at Christie's in 2014 for £2.55 million. It was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999 and lost, but it's the single work most people associate with the Young British Artists movement she came up through alongside Damien Hirst.

In 2020 she was diagnosed with aggressive bladder cancer and underwent surgery that removed several organs and left her with a stoma, an experience she's spoken about openly and that reshaped her subsequent work, including the 2023 bronze I Followed You Until The End. She was made a Dame in 2024, and in February 2026 Tate Modern opened "Tracey Emin: A Second Life," the largest survey of her career to date, including early video work never before shown publicly.