The same steely fortitude that helped propel her from a humble childhood in the seaside town of Margate to the Maidstone College of Art, and later to London's prestigious Royal College of Art, has emboldened her work with a disarming honesty and made her one of the most prominent artists of her generation.

WSJ: Reformed Bad-Girl Artist Tracey Emin

The noted caricaturists Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin depicted both the art and the raucous crowd of viewers at a Royal Academy exhibition in their satirical work "The Exhibition Room at Somerset House" (1800).

WSJ: Spies in the House of Art | Playing House | When Artists Take On Museums | by Tom L. Freudenheim