My Favourite Little Bird
My Favourite Little Bird
Signed Print
Tracey Emin
£1,000-£1,450Value Indicator
$2,050-$2,950 Value Indicator
$1,850-$2,650 Value Indicator
¥9,500-¥14,000 Value Indicator
€1,150-€1,650 Value Indicator
$10,500-$15,000 Value Indicator
¥200,000-¥290,000 Value Indicator
$1,350-$1,950 Value Indicator
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70 x 50cm, Edition of 500, Lithograph
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
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Meaning & Analysis
This signed lithograph from 2015 is a limited edition of 500 from Tracey Emin’s Neons series. The lithograph shows a little bird, rendered through blue neon tubes, as it sits on a bunch of twigs.
Emin is renowned for her versatility, with her production encompassing installation art, paintings, drawing, video and, since the early 2000s, neon. Her neon works are some the most sought-after pieces among the general public due to their captivating emotional intensity, establishing why Emin has translated some of her most famous neons into print form. Writing tends to dominate Emin's neon works, with pieces like The Kiss Was Beautiful representing a hot catch in any collector’s viewfinder. However, My Favourite Little Bird showcases Emin’s versatility with the medium by presenting a highly intricate visual depiction of one of Emin’s preferred iconographies - the blue bird resting on a leafed branch. Emin’s fascination with birds is well attested and is exemplified in her Birds series. For the artist, the animal embodies fragility and vulnerability, which are the same qualities attributed to Emin’s art and that enable the artist to captivate her audience. Additionally, the artist takes the bird to be emblematic of freedom, claiming that “I’ve always had the idea that birds are the angels of this earth and that they represent freedom. […] like a bird, I thought I was free.”
My Favourite Little Bird conveys fragility and wishful thinking visiually rather than via words. The popularity of this work is attested through its rich exhibition history. It was first presented as part of a duo of neons, entitled Our Angels, displayed by Emin for the British Pavillion of the Venice Biennale in 2007. Later on, the work was used again on the facade of the London Foundling Museum, which bears witness to the former British orphanage. In this case, the bird is turned by the artist into a symbol of courage and hope, as well as a tribute to the many children who found their homes in the London institution.
Tracey Emin, born in 1963, stands as a fearless provocateur in the contemporary art scene. A trailblazer of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement in the late 1980s, the artist has sparked conversation and controversy for decades. Confronting themes of love, trauma and femininity with great vulnerability, Emin's work is a visceral tapestry of her life and has forged an intimate dialogue between artist and audience. In 1999, this raw approach to storytelling won her a nomination to the Turner Prize and, in 2007, it got her a coveted spot as a Royal Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA).
