Tracey Emin ('The Last Thing I said to you is don't leave me here. 1')

1 portrait of Tracey Emin

© Tracey Emin

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Tracey Emin ('The Last Thing I said to you is don't leave me here. 1')

by Tracey Emin
inkjet print, 2000
32 in. x 43 in. (813 mm x 1092 mm)
Purchased, 2001
This portrait has been adopted thanks to a generous donation from Tim Weller and Jackie Weller
Primary Collection
NPG P879

Sitterback to top

  • Tracey Emin (1963-), Artist. Sitter in 12 portraits, Artist or producer of 2 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Tracey Emin (1963-), Artist. Artist or producer of 2 portraits, Sitter in 12 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This portrait shows Emin posed in the Whitstable beach hut purchased by herself and the artist Sarah Lucas in 1992. The enclosed space of the hut reinforces the claustrophobic atmosphere that surrounds this public artist. Her nudity here, both provocative and vulnerable, establishes the ambiguity suggested by the title.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Flavia Frigeri, Women At Work: 1900 to Now, 2023, p. 159
  • Howgate, Sarah; Nairne, Sandy, A Guide to Contemporary Portraits, 2009, p. 19 Read entry

    Tracey Emin is one of the leading members of the so-called Young British Artists (YBAs), a loose grouping of artists including Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and later Chris Ofili that achieved international attention in the 1990s. Emin frequently uses herself as subject matter for her art. In 2000 she produced four large-scale photo-based self-portraits, of which this is one. It shows her posed in the Whitstable beach hut that she purchased with Lucas in 1992. The hut hints at her Margate origins; the enclosed space reinforces the claustrophobic atmosphere that surrounds this very public artist. Emin’s nudity, both provocative and vulnerable, establishes the ambiguity suggested by the title.

  • Rideal, Liz, Insights: Self-portraits, 2005, p. 35 Read entry

    Tracey Emin frequently uses herself as subject matter for her art. She has a penchant for cryptic, misspelt pieces of text in her sewn works and drawings, which bear her written signature. This self-portrait taken in a beach hut hints at her Margate origins, the enclosed space reinforcing the claustrophobic atmosphere that surrounds this very public artist. Her nudity, both provocative and vulnerable, establishes the ambiguity suggested by the title.

Placesback to top

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 2000back to top

Current affairs

The world celebrates the start of a new millennium. Britain marks the occasion with a series of new buildings and landmarks including the Millennium Dome, the London Eye, the Millennium Bridge, and the Millennium Stadium. While the Dome was criticised by politicians and the public for wasting public funds, and the Bridge suffered initial stability problems, other projects have become major landscape and public attractions.

Art and science

Tate Modern opens as a national gallery of international modern art under the directorship of Nicholas Serota. The gallery, housed in the former Bankside Power Station, took the novel step of arranging the collection by theme rather than chronologically. As well as the collection galleries, Tate Modern has two large temporary exhibition spaces, and commissions installation projects for the enormous Turbine Hall.

International

British troops are deployed to Sierra Leone to establish order and evacuate foreign nationals from the country torn apart by civil war. Following a ceasefire President Kabbah declared the civil war officially over in 2002.
George W. Bush becomes President of the United States after a close election where he lost the popular vote, but won the electoral vote thanks to a controversial Supreme Court decision on Florida.

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