Mark Rothko

From enfant terrible to dame: Tracey Emin in her own words

From our UK edition

On the eve of a major retrospective at Tate Modern comes this portrait of Tracey Emin as a painter, told largely in her own words. It traces a remarkable trajectory, from gobby Margate teenager to one of the UK’s most respected and celebrated artists, and a Dame of the British Empire. At its heart is a series of conversations with Martin Gayford, a critic with a deep engagement with the nature of painting and insights gleaned from close friendships with 20th-century giants, Lucian Freud and David Hockney among them. It is a book full of heart – frank and confessional – and presents Emin at the zenith of her powers, having survived near-fatal cancer and found new purpose and conviction.

The dynamic genius of Milton Avery

It’s hard not to feel slightly odd when standing in front of a Milton Avery painting. Take his 1943 work Hors d’Oeuvres as an example. The painting — currently on show at London’s Royal Academy’s exhibition, Milton Avery: American Colorist — is large, at nearly a meter across, and the background is what appears to be a coastal landscape, with a greenish sea and the curve of a bay appearing in the upper right-hand corner. In the foreground of the painting is a cream table and on it, a blue platter of food: the “hors d’oeuvres” of the work’s title. So far, it might be hard to understand what is so disconcerting about this painting.