Yale Center for British Art Seen in a New Light – Beautifully Presenting J.M.W. Turner and Tracey Emin Together

By Ava Palermo

A view of the galleries at the Yale Center for British Art.

Image courtesy of Richard Capsule.

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), located in New Haven, Connecticut holds the largest collection of British art outside of the United Kingdom. The museum has recently undergone a renovation, following its two year closure, with the goal of conserving the modernist design of the building, originally constructed by Louis Khan. The Yale Center for British art has framed its reopening around its historical collections in a lively conversation, weaving in carefully selected contemporary artworks. Being one of two art museums housed on the campus of Yale University—the other being the Yale University Art Gallery, which draws close to a quarter of a million people annually—the Yale Center for British Art is hoping to attain an equal status to its counterpart in the coming years. The museum presents two exhibitions as its main viewings; both by influential British artists who interestingly have ties with the same English seaside town: Margate. The exhibitions are, respectively, J.M.W. Turner’s Romance and Reality alongside Tracey Emin’s I Loved You Until the Morning. These collections complement each other superbly in their effort to bring forth the vision of the YCBA—reintroducing its treasures to a new generation, while simultaneously demonstrating its commitment to engaging with contemporary art.

Although she has become quite a popular, some might say infamous, figure in the art world, Emin’s prominence has remained mostly confined to artistic discourse in the United Kingdom. YCBA’s show has situated itself as one of her first major presentations in a North American museum. This may be working in Emin’s favor. Not being a tabloid persona in the United States creates space for her work to be evaluated as well as critically appraised outside her bubble of fame. In Britain, Tracey Emin’s showings bring with them their own set of baggage and history, but situated in New Haven her pieces can reclaim their own identity and story. Emin’s autobiographical works express deep themes of love, loss, grief, and hope. Her art often draws from her own firsthand experiences in the realms of love, intimacy, illness, and sexuality—all of which intersect with one another seamlessly, working to uncover ideas about women's bodies. In one of her pieces entitled I never asked to fall in love – You made me Feel like This (2018), you can feel the emotions of the artist screaming at you from the folds of the canvas. Splattered in hues of red, the audience can immerse themselves in heartache and the pain of true intimacy.

Tracey Emin, I never Asked to Fall in Love – You made me Feel like This, 2018.

HV-Studio; Image courtesy of the artist and Xavier Hufkens.

Interestingly, Emin authored a poem to her counterpart, J.M.W Turner. She wrote to him expressing their shared love of Margate’s winter sunsets (which is included in a 2024 publication by the British Center that had reproduced his last Sketchbook). Of course, being 200 years her senior, this is a poem Turner will never receive. But the anecdote adds to viewers appreciation of the two exhibitions in tandem with one another. Turner himself has been called by many in the art world ‘the father of Modern Art.’ One of his most recognised pieces, and one that resonates closely with Emin’s childhood, is that entitled Margate (c. 1822). In this work we can see the beginnings of a newly built seaside resort, with ships lapping through waves in the distance and workers procuring a living, laboriously might I add, in the foreground. J.M.W. Turner has been hailed as the forerunner of modern art. His romantic visions come to meet a different kind of romance when cross examined with the works of Tracy Emin. It truly is a miraculous pairing, one that ought to astound and reverberate through generations.

J.M.W. Turner, Margate, 1822.

Image courtesy of Jane Beiles and The New York Times.

Lucinda Lax, the center’s Curator of Painting and Sculpture, has discussed her goals for creating space for questions surrounding empire, gender, and the role of women. She hopes the museum will meet her expectations this time around. Furthermore, as many universities are in jeopardy of having funding cut by the government, it flagging the use of words such as ‘gender’ and ‘women’ on institutional websites, Yale’s British Center is pioneering a way forward—not shying away from their engagement with a diverse range of perspectives in conversation with British art and history. The YCBA has done an exceptional job at grasping themes of reality and romance, and how these ideas form our memories and shape our history. Beyond Turner and Emin, the remarkable collection spans five centuries of British art. The YCBA hopes to create a break in the rhythm, allowing for a forum of positive and constructive discussions.

Bibliography

Higgie, Jennifer. “Tracey Emin’s Lifelong Affinity with Edvard Munch.” The Royal Academy of Arts, November 30, 2020. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/tracey-emin-jennifer-higgie-interview.

Keenan, Annabel. “Yale Center for British Art Reopens After Two Years.” The Art Newspaper, March 25, 2025. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/03/25/yale-center-british-art-reopening-new-havenrenovation.

Sheets, Hilarie M. “Yale Center for British Art Hosts Emin and Turner, the Masters of Margate.” The New York Times, April 25, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/arts/design/yale-british-art-tracey-eminturner.html?login=google&auth=login-google.

Solomon, Tessa. “A Luminous Yale Center for British Art Reopens.” ARTnews, March 28, 2025. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/a-luminous-yale-center-for-british-artreopens-with-a-better-story-to-tell-1234737076/.

Yale Center for British Art. “In a New Light: Five Centuries of British Art.” Accessed September 25, 2025. https://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/new-light-five-centuries-british-art.

Yale Center for British Art. “Tracey Emin: I Loved You Until the Morning.” Accessed September 25, 2025. https://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/tracey-emin-i-loved-you-until-morning