Tracey Emin once made a tent for which she gained some notoriety. On it, she’d appliquéd the names of everyone she had ever slept with – including, as a child, her beloved Granny Hodgkins. Sadly, the tent, called Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, was destroyed in a fire at Momart, the art-storage warehouse, in 2004. The loss of her tent was keenly felt, and she refused to recreate it. But genealogists in Who Do You Think You Are? gave Emin something to smile about when they dug deep into her family history: Emin comes from a long line of tent-dwellers.
When she was shown pictures of the types of tent – like native American tepees – her gypsy ancestors would have lived in, Emin felt an affinity with her newly discovered bloodline. She was pleased that she had gypsy, possibly Romany, blood running through her veins. What symmetry. And her maternal ancestors had acquired high status, too, at least within their own tight-knit communities: they had married into some of the oldest gypsy families in Warwickshire. (Elsewhere, of course, gypsies faced daily persecution, including threats of being rounded up and whipped by the authorities.)
There are just some areas too daring even for an artist as confessional and soul-bearing as Emin
The programme ended on a teary high note, with Emin romping through grassy Tinker’s Lane where her great-great-great-grandfather’s itinerant family had settled for a while. But the family’s later history had proved to be a grim tour through London’s harsh Victorian penal system. Clearly ashamed of his gypsy heritage, Emin’s great-great-grandfather, Joseph Hodgkins, chose to sever family ties and move to Bethnal Green. Situated in the poorest part of London (at least until its reinvention by the Brit Artists – thanks Tracey) Bethnal Green was hardly much of a step up in the world. But still, it’s barely a stone’s throw from where Emin lives now in her grand house in Spitalfields. (Pictured below: Tracey Emin and Granny Hodgkins.)
For poor Joseph, however, 12 months' hard labour followed for the theft of a large haul of fertiliser. His son, Henry, barely 16 and fresh out of reformatory, would also do time for nicking, amongst other things, a violin (which clearly demonstrated a creative streak, according to Emin). It was sad, but perhaps without them Emin wouldn’t have the impish, roguish streak she’s famous for. “I’m the last of my kind," she said, regretfully, “there’s no more like me.”
Who Do You Think You Are? has a remarkably high tear-count, and what’s always rather touching is how much its subjects end up really rooting for their bloodkin. It’s interesting, too, that Emin’s paternal bloodline was left completely untouched; her Turkish-Cypriot father has featured more heavily in Emin’s work than anyone, apart, of course, from herself.
But though an influence, he was also, effectively, a bigamist, and Emin has never pursued a relationship with her half-siblings. Too painful, perhaps, for her mother. One also notes that there are just some areas too daring even for an artist as confessional and soul-bearing as Tracey Emin.