Tracey Emin's My Bed back on show at Tate Britain after 15-year gap

The artist's conceptual artwork "My Bed" has returned to Tate Britain as the gallery re-hangs its collection of British art from 1500 to the present
Back to bed: Tracey Emin’s My Bed has been lent to the Tate by its current owner, Count Christian Duerckheim, who paid £2.54 million for it (Picture: Lucy Young)

Tracey Emin’s famous unmade bed went on show at Tate Britain today for the first time in 15 years, alongside six drawings she has donated.

The artist is thrilled that German businessman and collector Count Christian Duerckheim, who bought the work at Christie’s for £2.54 million, has lent it to Tate Britain as she regards the gallery as its “natural home”.

Emin, 51, said: “I feel like the cat that’s got the cream.”

My Bed, a crumpled mess of stained sheets amid detritus including discarded condoms and knickers, was made in Emin’s Waterloo council flat in 1998 after the traumatic breakdown of a relationship, and shown when she was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize.

Curator Elena Crippa said: “It’s wonderful to have it back and it’s wonderful Tracey is so excited about the bed returning to Tate Britain.” She added that when it was first seen the work was “very much immersed in the hype around the YBAs” — the generation of Young British Artists also including Damien Hirst.

But she said: “What can happen now is we can appreciate the work for its own qualities rather than reading it as part of that generational history.” It shared the same “vital energy” as two paintings by Francis Bacon shown alongside it and “has been part of her artistic development which has been incredible over the last 17 years.”

Ms Crippa said the gift of the recent figure drawings was “very generous” and they would go on show with My Bed and the Bacon paintings as Tate Britain unveils a re-hang of its collection of British art from 1500 to the present.

The new BP-sponsored display of 500 works in 20 galleries also includes works by Antony Gormley, David Hockney and Anish Kapoor and some recent acquisitions on show for the first time. The Gormley is an early work also on a bed theme. Called Bed 1980-1981, it is a double mattress made from slices of bread with two eaten-away impressions of the artist’s body.

This spring also sees a special display focusing on the famous Joseph Wright painting, An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump 1768, rarely-seen pre-Raphaelite works on paper, and a sound installation of bird calls by Oswaldo Maciá.

Emin’s bed will later be shown at the Turner Contemporary in her home town of Margate, followed by Tate Liverpool.

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