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Yours for £40 ... and it could be a Tracey Emin
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent5 Nov 2008
Yoko Ono, Tracey Emin and photographer David Bailey have created new works to help future artists.
All three have contributed an original piece of art on a postcard for sale in the Royal College of Art's annual Secret exhibition, which raises money for bursaries to the college.
The secret is that only after you have paid £40 for your card of choice do you discover the identity of its maker on the back.
Each visitor can buy up to four from the 2,700 on display on a first-come, first-served basis. It means with a keen eye and a bit of luck you could pick up originals by, for example, four different Turner Prize winners for £160.
Grayson Perry, Anish Kapoor, Douglas Gordon and Grenville Davey are the award-winning quartet.
More than 1,000 creatives, including shoemaker Manolo Blahnik, fashion designers Sonia Rykiel and Paul Smith, and architect Will Alsop, have also turned their hand to the task.
Illustrator Quentin Blake, Clash guitarist-turned-painter Paul Simonon, Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park and singer Holly Johnson are on the list. Or you could end up with a piece by Olafur Eliasson, designer of the Weather Project in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, veteran American artist Alex Katz or designer James Dyson.
Wilhelmina Bunn, the curator, said: "People are very keen to do it. It's quite hard for people like Manolo Blahnik because they're all over the place, but they do.
"They want to support it because the money goes to the fine art students' bursary fund for those who perhaps couldn't come to the Royal College otherwise."
However, purchasers could find themselves with a work by an unknown - though potential star of the future - as the current crop of 160 students also submit pieces.
The purchases could prove a shrewd investment. A postcard by Peter Doig bought in 2000 later sold at Sotheby's for £42,000.
The works cover all disciplines taught at the RCA from painting to sculpture and ceramics. It means some cards are three-dimensional. All will go on show at the RCA in Kensington Gore from 14 to 21 November. The sale will take place on 22 November from 8am until 6pm.
Visitors to the exhibition can take part in a £1-a-ticket raffle to win one of the first 50 places in the now-traditional queue on sale day. The cards will also be available to view online.
About 3,000 visitors turned up for the sale last year. More than £1million has been raised for the bursary fund since the first Secret show in 1994.
Reader views (1)
Most of Tracey's creations are worth less than £40 in the first place? My young daughter leaves an unmade bed day after day, and she doesn't get a penny of pocket-money for that
- Keith Price, Luton, England, 05/11/2008 16:49
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