Dame Tracey Emin has paid an emotional tribute to her brother Alan, revealing that her elder sibling died last week while she was in hospital.
In a post on Instagram, the 63-year-old artist told fans: “I’ve had the strangest time. Deeply sad events, some I can write about, some I can’t. My elder brother Alan died last week. I was expecting it but not expecting it.
“I know he is where he wants to be. I keep trying to tell myself the loss and sadness is mine. He is soaring high in a much better place.
“I loved my brother Alan very much he was a kind and gentle soul.”
Writing alongside a photograph of a stuffed toy on top of piece of hospital equipment, Emin also shared her latest health struggles.
“I also spent the last eight days in hospital,” she wrote. “I keep being unwell. This time boarder line sepsis and an acute attack of diverticulitis [an inflammation in the intestine]. I’ve been suffering for weeks on and off, one infection after another. It makes me so weak.
“Every bit of pain, every heartbreak feels like the heaviest weight trying to crush me.
“This last couple of weeks I feel like I’ve been smashed with a sledge hammer. Broken, trampled, Cursed….”
“So I am going to get out my giant golden shield and breast plate,” she continued. “I’m going to polish them so bright that the whole world reflects. Any hex that’s thrown at me will go straight back. I’m ready….
“We live now in the cruelest of worlds. Alan was right to take his leave. I love you Alan. Rest in peace.”
Emin was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer in 2020 and underwent extensive surgery to remove her bladder, uterus, ovaries, urethra, lymph nodes, part of her vagina and parts of her intestine. She now has a stoma bag.
Emin received the four-year all-clear for cancer in June 2024, when she was also made a dame for services to British art.
The artist said at the time: “When you've had cancer to the level that I had, where you really think you're probably going to die and you're looking at months ahead of you to live – and then suddenly everything turns around, it's like being born again and life starts again and all these really amazing things happen.”
She has held a number of major exhibitions in recent years, exploring her health journey in I Followed You To The End at London’s White Cube gallery in 2024, before a celebrated career retrospective at the Tate Modern this year.
