Pamono Tracey Emin 20-Year Retrospective Lithographic Poster, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 2008> Posters

Tracey Emin’s 20-Year Retrospective Lithographic Poster published by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Publisher: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Publication Date: 2nd August 2008
Dimensions: Height: 70 cm Width: 50 cm
Edition: Open edition but the print run was limited to 500 impressions.
Condition: Excellent

The provocative imagery chosen for the poster advertising her first landmark retrospective held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from 2 nd August to 9 th November 2008 not only reflects the defiance behind the often-sexually provocative attitudes depicted in her work but also resonates with the feminist tenets she has advanced throughout her career with her wide-ranging creations.
It is after the original photograph of Tracey Emin taken by Scott Douglas MacNee.
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, erring on the side of caution, only printed 500 imprints of this poster, which were all sold out in a matter of days.

Tracey Emin was born in 1963 to Turkish Cypriot parents to Margate in Kent. Her young life was a mixture of promiscuous sex and self-destructive activities as she moved between different men and art schools. Rape, abortion, family tragedy and a host of unpleasant diseases figure in her early life and most of these tragic events were well-documented in the ‘20 Years’ Retrospective held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
She was the ‘enfant terrible’ of the group that came to be known as the YBAs in the 1980s (Young British Artists) which included such artists as Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sam Taylor-Wood, among others, who were thrusting onto the international art scene shocking images and sex-centred artistic creations and highly conceptual art.
Emin herself burst onto the world art scene in 1997, when her work ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept with 1963-1995’, a tent appliqued with the names of everyone the artist had ever shared a bed with was shown at Charles Saatchi’s ‘Sensation’ exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London.
Her art is one of disclosure, using her life-events as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework and sculpture.
Emin’s work has an urgency, a here-and-now quality, often with in-your-face sexual imagery with which she attempts to position her oeuvre within the tradition of feminist discourse.
The hopes and frustrations, failures and successes expressed in her work are candid and, at times, both tragic and humorous.
Emin’s transition from a messed-up, angry, rebellious working-class teenager in the 1970s in Margate on a path signposted in the direction of self-destruction, with an interlude in the 1980s as a prominent figure of the YBAs. vilified and feted but central to the media’s love/hate relationship with culture to her emergence in 2007 as a Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts is a truly remarkable story in itself.
She comes across as a great British character and a visual storyteller of complex issues of her times, focusing on events and experiences of her own unusual life.
Emin is now very much a grande dame of the British Art establishment. In 2008 she was UK’s representative at the Venice Biennale.

In December 2011, Emin was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.
Leaving aside the question whether she is a great artist or her creations are simply self-indulgent confessions, her work makes her stand out as the leading artistic standard-bearer for the feminist discourse in the early decades of the 21 st century.
Emin is a consummate publicist and outspoken in her views, especially in the furtherance of feminist causes.

Our Comment

It is reported that demand for the poster was such that the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art could have sold another 1000 in addition to the 500 they published. The fortunate buyers will most likely hold this iconic poster as a treasured possession. Our research shows that hardly any imprints have appeared on the secondary market since 2008. This striking creation now ranks as an extremely rare poster and should be of especial interest to the emerging class of female art collectors.
In this context it is worth noting that Emin is a highly competent self publicist and always forthright in the articulation of her views, especially in espousing feminist issues dear to her heart.

We confidently predict that Emin’s works will retain their present appeal for decades to come and this landmark poster will emerge as a collector’s item steadily increasing in value.