Tracey Emin retrospective exhibition to open at Tate Modern in 2026

A major Tracey Emin exhibition is coming to Tate Modern in 2026. The huge retrospective is likely to be one of the most anticipated London exhibitions of the year.

The entirety of Emin’s 40-year career will be covered in the show. Visitors are promised career-defining works alongside material never exhibited before. The mediums on display will span painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation.

There’ll be a focus on the recurring themes in her artworks, such as her raw and confessional approach, as well as explorations on love, trauma, autobiography, pain, loss and healing.

And expect to see details on how she burst onto the scene as part of the YBA Young British Artist movement of the 1990s — alongside artists like Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas — who collectively made contemporary art go mainstream, paving the way for Tate Modern's own existence.

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The legacy of Emin's My Bed

A highlight for visitors will undoubtedly be My Bed, the 1998 installation that cemented Emin’s reputation in the public eye, and which sparked fierce critical and public debate on the evolution of contemporary art.

Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998 Tate. Lent by The Duerckheim Collection 2015, On long term loan © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage

Featuring stained sheets, discarded condoms, and empty bottles of alcohol it shocked at the time, but saw Emin nominated for the Turner Prize. The artwork was sold at auction in 2014 for £2.54m.

And while not fully confirmed it will feature in the exhibition, the fact Tate are using an image of the installation to promote the show suggests it will be back on rare public display.

What is unlikely to make an appearance however is her 1997 piece Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent embroidered with names of all the people she has shared beds with, from family members to sexual partners. It was destroyed in a warehouse fire in East London in 2004, alongside hundreds of works by leading British artists. Thus far Emin has never re-created it. Although perhaps this retrospective might be the moment she has a change of heart?

Emin is experiencing something of a renaissance in the art world right now. After surviving an aggressive cancer diagnosis in 2020 where she needed major life-saving surgery, she’s enjoyed a number of exhibitions which feature new works inspired by her cancer experience. Tate has said a number of these newer works — most of them paintings — will be included in their exhibition.

Emin also set up her own art school in her home town of Margate, she created the huge new entrance doors for the reopened National Portrait Gallery, and she was made a Dame in the King’s birthday honours of 2024 for services to British art.

Tracey Emin's exhibition will be shown at Tate Modern. Photo: Shutterstock

Emin’s exhibition at Tate is long overdue, as one of the most famous British artists of the past three decades. If you're (rightly) excited, keep an eye out for when tickets go on sale later in 2025.

And while it will be one of Tate Modern’s must-see exhibitions of next year, she won’t be the only female artist in the spotlight at the gallery. In January, they will also unveil an in-depth exploration of Frida Kahlo’s career.

Tracey Emin — in partnership with Gucci — opens at Tate Modern in London on 26 February 2026