At a book launch in the late 1980s, Kazuo Ishiguro quipped to Martin Amis that all the greatest novels were written by authors in their 20s and 30s. Amis, who wrote his first novel at 23, was just about to turn 40. Last week, Tracey Emin expressed a similar sentiment, observing on The Louis Theroux Podcast that most male artists are less of a creative “force” after the age of 40. Emin added her own spin on Ishiguro’s thesis: women “just tend to come and come and come and come and come, so as a woman, you carry on coming all your life until you’re old”. Emin is 61.
The artist, most famous for Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 (The Tent) and My Bed, has never shied away from sparking controversy. It is clearly unfair to dismiss all male artists as past their “peak” at 40. Art history is littered with old – literally – masters: David Hockney is still going strong at 87; Lucian Freud painted until the day he died in 2011, aged 88, as did Michelangelo; Picasso and Matisse were prolific until the ripe old ages of 91 and 84 respectively.
