Talented: Tracey Emin has spoken of her fears of never having a family

Her controversial artwork has won her fame and a multi-million-pound fortune.

But yesterday Tracey Emin - best known for the notorious unmade bed she exhibited for the 1999 Turner Prize - told of the one thing she has not got: she is scared of never becoming a mother.

The 45-year-old, who had two abortions in her 20s, revealed she is frightened of not having a family and dying alone.

'There's a lot of men that would give up everything to be in my position, to have the success that I have,' she said.

'It's like a Faustian pact. They'd swap their wife, their children, everything. They're so desperate for that success.

'And I'm not like that. A few months ago I got very scared about the idea of dying alone, getting old alone because not many people do it  -  they have families.'

Miss Emin said she had wanted to have her first baby at 40.

Her decision was influenced by her poor upbringing  -  and she was convinced that by 40, she would have banked £1million and passed her driving test.

Miss Emin was born in Croydon, South London and brought up in Margate, Kent.

The family was thrown into poverty when she was young after her father, who claims to have had 23 children, abandoned them.

She was put on the Pill at the age of 14 because her mother's view was that having a baby would 'destroy her life'.

The artist arriving at the wedding of Leah Woods in June

The artist said: 'If you've ever been brought up poor, without food, without heating, without plimsolls, with holes in things, you do not ever want to have children, to be in that situation.'

However, she has often been involved with men who already had children of their own.

Her relationship with artist Matt Collishaw ended in 2003 after more than five years, during which she claims he was wildly unfaithful.

'When we first got together when I was 32, I said to him, "When I'm 40 I will want to have a baby".

'And then he left me when I was 39.'

Now she has a photographer boyfriend called Scott, who also has children of his own.
'Every day I'm writing it off,' Miss Emin said in an interview with The Times.

'I'm adjusting to not having them. I knew it would do my head in around the time ... and also I got p***ed off because I'm quite a good woman so I was thinking, "But I'm obviously not good enough to have someone's children".'

Miss Emin - whose provocative work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 featured the names of her lovers pasted on the interior of a tent  -  said she has now made a pact with herself to adopt a child once she is 50.

But she fears the adoption process may be unsuccessful.

'My Bed': the unmade bed Miss Emin exhibited for the 1999 Turner Prize

The Turner Prize nominee said she is trying to be a good godmother - to ensure there is a younger generation in her life.

She says the good thing about being childless 'is that you can do what the f*** you like'.

She added: 'I can do anything. 'I can travel around the world, I can stay up all night drinking, I don't have to answer to anyone.

'But I don't want to be like that anyway.

Part of the Tracey Emin Baby Art collection in Folkestone last month. Pieces of baby clothes made in bronze were spread in a trail along the town's sea front

'I do all the charity work and, sometimes, I question the whole big scheme of things.

'How does it all work? What's it all for?

'If I was a grandmother I'd have this other kind of arc where things go, but I don't have an arc.

'The only thing I have is me.'