Tracey Emin Hands Teaching Fee To Students

Royal Academy Drawing Professor Pledges Subsidy

Turner prize nominated Artist ,Tracey Emin has revealed that she will donate her Royal Academy teaching fees to her students. Emin stated in an interview for the BBC; that she would spend the money on artists’ materials to use in her classes. It was announced last week that Emin had been appointed Professor of Drawing at the art college “I did spend seven years learning to draw and then after that, I broke it down to work within my own style,” the artist said. “I’m a real advocate of drawing and I think there isn’t enough literal drawing in art schools. It’s very good for the soul as well and good for the memory.” However, Emin said the role would not necessarily see her lecture in a traditional sense: “It’s a wonderful position because I actually dictate how the drawing classes can be,” she said. “I can work with students individually, I can give tutorials or I can do drawing courses – it’s absolutely up to me what I do.”

Emin earned a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1997 with one of her best-known works, a tent embroidered with the name of Everyone I Have Slept With 1963-1995.
Tracey Emin is one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artists. It was revealed a fortnight ago that she had been appointed as the new Professor of Drawing at London’s prestigious Royal Academy, the country’s oldest art school. The General Assembly of Royal Academicians (RAs) an exclusive club of sculptors, architects, printmakers and painters have supported the decision. However the appointment of the 48-year-old artist is somewhat controversial: most famous for the works Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (a tent embroidered with the names of everyone she had ever sleepy with), and My Bed (her unmade bed, surrounded by grimy detritus), Emin is not your typical fine arts academician – and perhaps an odd choice of a professor of drawing. Figurative painter Diana Armfield, for instance, complained to the Times that she ‘wouldn’t have thought that her talents were that way, while conceding that Emin’s scrawling works on paper ‘I suppose are drawings’. And she may have a point that Emin’s draughtsmanship  lacks the formal skill of former post-holders – from William Turner, and John Constable, to William Blake.

Tate Galleries director Nicholas Serota has supported the decision of Emin’s appointment, however: ‘there will be a lot of people who say, ‘What a lousy idea, she doesn’t stand for classical drawing’, but I think it’s a great appointment’: ‘Drawing is the foundation for everything she does and I think it’s the thing for which she is most recognised internationally as well’, he told the Times. Here Here!

Emin is due to guest edit Radio 4’s Today programme on 28 December.

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