Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst (Template:IPAc-en; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and art collector.<ref>Nicholson, Octavia. "Hirst, Damien (Steven)", Oxford Art Online (subscription). Retrieved 9 November 2008.</ref> He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s.<ref>"Glossary: Young British Artists (YBA)", Tate Etc.. Retrieved 14 July 2009.</ref><ref>"Hirst generation missing from Turner prize 2000 shortlist", The Guardian, 14 June 2000. Retrieved 11 September 2009.</ref> He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="entertainment.timesonline">Richard Brooks, "It's the fame I crave, says Damien Hirst", The Times, 28 March 2010</ref><ref name=insanity/> During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.<ref name=buysback/>

Death is a central theme in Hirst's works.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Brooks, Richard. "Damien Hirst's earliest painting goes on sale", The Sunday Times, 6 April 2008. Retrieved 22 March 2010.</ref> He became famous for a series of artworks in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep, and a cow) are preserved, sometimes having been dissected, in formaldehyde. The best-known of these is The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a Template:Convert tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a clear display case.

In September 2008, Hirst made an unprecedented move for a living artist<ref name="thisislondon">Barker, Godfrey; Jury, Louise."Even his fag ends sell as Hirst art auction hits £100 million", London Evening Standard, 16 September 2008. Retrieved 22 July 2009.</ref> by selling a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby's by auction and bypassing his long-standing galleries.<ref name=akbar1/> The auction raised £111 million ($198 million), breaking the record for a one-artist auction<ref name=parsons/> as well as Hirst's own record with £10.3 million for The Golden Calf, an animal with 18-carat gold horns and hooves, preserved in formaldehyde.<ref name=akbar1/>

Since 1999, Hirst's works have been challenged and contested as plagiarised 16 times. In one instance, after his sculpture Hymn was found to be closely based on a child's toy, legal proceedings led to an out-of-court settlement.<ref name="guardian">Dyer, Clare. "Hirst pays up for Hymn that wasn't his", The Guardian, 19 May 2000. Retrieved 15 September 2010.</ref>

Early life and training

Hirst was born Damien Steven Brennan in Bristol<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and grew up in Leeds with his Irish mother who worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau. He never met his father; his mother married his stepfather when Hirst was two, and the couple divorced 10 years later. His stepfather was reportedly a motor mechanic.<ref name="shockaholic">Template:Cite news</ref>

His mother stated that she lost control of her son when he was young; he was arrested on two occasions for shoplifting.<ref name=shockaholic/> Hirst sees her as someone who would not tolerate rebellion: she cut up his bondage trousers and heated one of his Sex Pistols vinyl records on the cooker to turn it into a fruit bowl<ref name=cleanup/> (or a plant pot).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He says, "If she didn't like how I was dressed, she would quickly take me away from the bus stop". She did, though, encourage his liking for drawing, which was his only successful educational subject.<ref name=cleanup>Template:Cite news</ref>

His art teacher at Allerton Grange School "pleaded"<ref name=cleanup/> for Hirst to be allowed to enter the sixth form,<ref name=cleanup/> where he took two A-levels, achieving an "E" grade in art.<ref name=shockaholic/> He was refused admission to Jacob Kramer College when he first applied, but attended the art school after a subsequent successful application to the Foundation Diploma course.<ref name=shockaholic/>

He went to an exhibition of work by Francis Davison, staged by Julian Spalding at the Hayward Gallery in 1983.<ref name=spalding03>Template:Cite news</ref> Davison created abstract collages from torn and cut coloured paper which, Hirst said, "blew me away", and which inspired his own work for the next two years.<ref name=spalding03/>

He worked for two years on London building sites, then studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College (1986–89),<ref name=shockaholic/> although again he was refused a place the first time he applied.Template:Citation needed In 2007, Hirst was quoted as saying of An Oak Tree by Goldsmiths' senior tutor, Michael Craig-Martin: "That piece is, I think, the greatest piece of conceptual sculpture. I still can't get it out of my head."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> While a student, Hirst had a placement at a mortuary, an experience that influenced his later themes and materials.<ref>Lewis Schiff, Business Brilliant: Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons, Harper Collins, 2013, Template:ISBN</ref> While an art student, Hirst was an assistant at Anthony d'OffayTemplate:'s gallery.<ref name="alainelkanninterviews/anthony-doffay">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="artspace/52504">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="independent.co.uk/7600564">Template:Cite news</ref>

Early career—student and warehouse shows

In July 1988, in his second year at Goldsmiths College, Hirst was the main organiser of an independent student exhibition, Freeze, in a disused London Port Authority administrative block in London's Docklands. He gained sponsorship for this event from the London Docklands Development Corporation. The show was visited by Charles Saatchi, Norman Rosenthal and Nicholas Serota, thanks to the influence of his Goldsmiths lecturer Michael Craig-Martin. Hirst's own contribution to the show consisted of a cluster of cardboard boxes painted with household paint.<ref>The Freeze catalogue 1988</ref> After graduating, Hirst was included in New Contemporaries show and in a group show at Kettle's Yard gallery in Cambridge. Seeking a gallery dealer, he first approached Karsten Schubert, but was turned down.

Hirst, along with his friend Carl Freedman and Billee Sellman, curated two enterprising "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and Gambler, in a Bermondsey former Peek Freans biscuit factory they designated "Building One".<ref>Rainbird, Sean. "'Are We as a Society Going to Carry on Treating People This Way?' Michael Landy's Scrapheap Services", Tate Gallery, Spring 2004. Retrieved 22 October 2008.</ref><ref name=archer>Archer, Michael. "Oranges and Lemons and Oranges and Bananas", Acme, 2001. Retrieved 22 October 2008.</ref> Saatchi arrived at the second show in a green Rolls-Royce and, according to Freedman, stood open-mouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding on a rotting cow's head.<ref>"Market News:Counter", The Daily Telegraph, 17 March 2003. Retrieved 22 October 2008.</ref> They also staged Michael Landy's Market.<ref name=archer/> At this time, Hirst said, "I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."<ref name=spalding03/>

Professional career

1987–1990

1987 – Damien Hirst and Holden Rowan, Old Court Gallery, Windsor Arts Centre, Windsor, UK – Curator Derek Culley<ref name="BlainSouthernCV">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

1988 – Damien Hirst: Constructions and Sculpture, Old Court Gallery, Windsor, UK -Curator Derek Culley<ref name="BlainSouthernCV"/>

1988 – Freeze, Surrey Docks, London, UK<ref name="BlainSouthernCV"/>

1989 – New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK<ref name="BlainSouthernCV"/>

1990 – Modern Medicine, Building One, London, UK<ref name="BlainSouthernCV"/>

1990 – Gambler, Building One, London, UK<ref name="BlainSouthernCV"/>

1990 – Building One, Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Paris, FR<ref name="BlainSouthernCV"/>

1991–1994

His first solo exhibition, organised by Tamara Chodzko (now Dial), In and Out of Love, was held in an unused shop on Woodstock Street in central London in 1991;<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 112.</ref> already in 1989 he had been part of a group exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts,<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 64.</ref> and the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Paris.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The Serpentine Gallery presented the first survey of the new generation of artists with the exhibition Broken English,<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 71.</ref> in part curated by Hirst.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1991 Hirst met the up-and-coming art dealer, Jay Jopling, who then represented him.<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 65.</ref>

In 1991, Charles Saatchi had offered to fund whatever artwork Hirst wanted to make, and the result was showcased in 1992 in the first Young British Artists exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in North London. Hirst's work was titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and was a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and sold for £50,000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The shark had been caught by a commissioned fisherman in Australia and had cost £6,000.<ref name=mulls>"Saatchi mulls £6.25m shark offer", BBC. Retrieved 23 February 2007.</ref> The exhibition also included In a Thousand Years. As a result of the show, Hirst was nominated for that year's Turner Prize, but it was awarded to Grenville Davey.

Hirst's first major international presentation was in the Venice Biennale in 1993 with the work, Mother and Child Divided, a cow and a calf cut into sections and exhibited in a series of separate vitrines. He curated the show Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away in 1994 at the Serpentine Gallery in London, where he exhibited Away from the Flock (a sheep in a tank of formaldehyde). On 9 May, Mark Bridger, a 35-year-old artist from Oxford, walked into the gallery and poured black ink into the tank, and retitled the work Black Sheep. He was subsequently prosecuted, at Hirst's wish, and was given two years' probation.Template:Citation needed The sculpture was restored at a cost of £1,000. When a photograph of Away from the Flock was reproduced in the 1997 book by Hirst I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one-to-one, always, forever, now, the vandalism was referenced by allowing the tank to be obscured by pulling a card, reproducing the effect of ink being poured into the tank; this resulted in Hirst being sued by Bridger for violating his copyright on Black Sheep.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

1995–1999

In 1995, Hirst won the Turner Prize. New York public health officials banned Two Fucking and Two Watching featuring a rotting cow and bull, because of fears of "vomiting among the visitors".Template:Citation needed There were solo shows in Seoul, London and Salzburg. He directed the video for the song Country House for the band Blur. No Sense of Absolute Corruption, his first solo show in the Gagosian Gallery in New York was staged the following year. In London the short film, Hanging Around, was shown—written and directed by Hirst and starring Eddie Izzard. In 1997 the Sensation exhibition opened at the Royal Academy in London. A Thousand Years and other works by Hirst were included, but the main controversy occurred over other artists' works. It was nevertheless seen as the formal acceptance of the YBAs into the establishment.<ref>Beckett, Andy. "Shock art to shop art", The Guardian, p. T.002, 28 August 1997.</ref>

In 1997, his autobiography and art book, I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, was published. With Alex James of the band Blur and actor Keith Allen, he formed the band Fat Les, achieving a number 2 hit with a raucous football-themed song Vindaloo, followed up by Jerusalem with the London Gay Men's Chorus. Hirst also painted a simple colour pattern for the Beagle 2 probe. This pattern was to be used to calibrate the probe's cameras after it had landed on Mars. He turned down the British Council's invitation to be the UK's representative at the 1999 Venice Biennale because "it didn't feel right".<ref name=guardian2>The Guardian 6 October 2001. Retrieved 19 March 2006.</ref> He threatened to sue British Airways claiming a breach of copyright over an advert design with coloured spots for its low budget airline, Go.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

2000–2004

In 2000, Hirst's sculpture Hymn (which Saatchi had bought for a reported £1m) was given pole position at the show Ant Noises (an anagram of "sensation") in the Saatchi Gallery. Hirst was then sued himself for breach of copyright over this sculpture (see Appropriation below).<ref name=emms>"Hirst Pays up in Toy Row" on BBC site. Retrieved 19 March 2006.</ref> Hirst sold three more copies of his sculpture for similar amounts to the first.<ref name=davids>"Charles Saatchi Could Have Bought Four Davids for the Price of Tracey Emin's Bed", The Daily Telegraph, 7 January 2006. Retrieved 20 March 2006.</ref> In September 2000, in New York, Larry Gagosian held the Hirst show, Damien Hirst: Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings. 100,000 people visited the show in 12 weeks and all the work was sold.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On 10 September 2002, on the eve of the first anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, Hirst said in an interview with BBC News Online:

The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of like an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually... You've got to hand it to them on some level because they've achieved something which nobody would have ever have thought possible, especially to a country as big as America. So on one level they kind of need congratulating, which a lot of people shy away from, which is a very dangerous thing.<ref>Allison, Rebecca. (11 September 2002). "9/11 wicked but a work of art, says Damien Hirst", The Guardian. Retrieved 11 November 2008.</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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The next week, following public outrage at his remarks, he issued a statement through his company, Science Ltd:

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In 2002, Hirst gave up smoking and drinking after his wife Maia had complained and "had to move out because I was so horrible".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He had met Joe Strummer (former lead singer of The Clash) at Glastonbury in 1995, becoming good friends and going on annual family holidays with him. Just before Christmas 2002, Strummer died of a heart attack. This had a profound effect on Hirst, who said, "It was the first time I felt mortal". He subsequently devoted a lot of time to founding a charity, Strummerville, to help young musicians.<ref name=cleanup/>

In April 2003, the Saatchi Gallery opened at new premises in County Hall, London, with a show that included a Hirst retrospective. This brought a developing strain in his relationship with Saatchi to a head<ref name=buysback/> (one source of contention had been who was most responsible for boosting their mutual profile). Hirst disassociated himself from the retrospective to the extent of not including it in his CV.<ref name=buysback/> He was angry that a Mini car that he had decorated for charity with his trademark spots was being exhibited as a serious artwork.<ref name=buysback/> The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern.<ref name=buysback/> He said Saatchi was "childish"<ref name=cleanup/> and "I'm not Charles Saatchi's barrel-organ monkey ... He only recognises art with his wallet ... he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it."<ref name=buysback>"Hirst Buys His Art back from Saatchi", The Guardian, 27 November 2003. Retrieved 20 March 2006.</ref>

In September 2003, he had an exhibition Romance in the Age of Uncertainty at Jay Jopling's White Cube gallery in London, which made him a reported £11m,<ref name=cleanup/> bringing his wealth to over £35m. It was reported that a sculpture, Charity, had been sold for £1.5m to a Korean, Kim Chang-Il, who intended to exhibit it in his department store's gallery in Seoul.<ref name=holy>9 September 2003. 'Holy Cow! Hirst Turns to Religion'. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 March 2006.</ref> The 22-foot (6.7m), 6-ton sculpture was based on the 1960s Spastic Society's model, which is of a girl in leg irons holding a collecting box. In Hirst's version the collecting box is shown broken open and is empty.

Charity was exhibited in the centre of Hoxton Square, in front of White Cube. Inside the gallery downstairs were 12 vitrines representing Jesus's disciples, each case containing mostly gruesome, often blood-stained, items relevant to the particular disciple. At the end was an empty vitrine, representing Christ. Upstairs were four small glass cases, each containing a cow's head stuck with scissors and knives. It has been described as an "extraordinarily spiritual experience" in the tradition of Catholic imagery.<ref name=soul>Dorment, Richard. (10 September 2003). 'Damien Bares His Soul'. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 March 2006.</ref> At this time Hirst bought back 12 works from Saatchi (a third of Saatchi's holdings of Hirst's early works), through Jay Jopling, reportedly for more than £8 million. Hirst had sold these pieces to Saatchi in the early 1990s for rather less, his first installations costing under £10,000.<ref name=buysback/>

On 24 May 2004, a fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including 17 of Hirst's, although the sculpture Charity survived, as it was outside in the builder's yard. That July, Hirst said of Saatchi, "I respect Charles. There's not really a feud. If I see him, we speak, but we were never really drinking buddies."<ref name=cleanup/>

Hirst designed a cover image for the Band Aid 20 charity single featuring the "Grim Reaper" in late 2004, and image showing an African child perched on his knee.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This design was not to the liking of the record company executives,Template:Who and was replaced by reindeer in the snow standing next to a child.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In December 2004, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was sold by Saatchi to American collector Steve Cohen, for $8 million, in a deal negotiated by Hirst's New York agent, Gagosian.<ref name=vogel>Template:Cite news</ref> Cohen, a Greenwich hedge fund manager, then donated the work to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Sir Nicholas Serota had wanted to acquire it for the Tate Gallery, and Hugo Swire, Shadow Minister for the Arts, tabled a question to ask if the government would ensure it stayed in the country.<ref name=Swire>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

2005–2009

Hirst exhibited 30 paintings at the Gagosian Gallery in New York in March 2005. These had taken 3½ years to complete. They were closely based on photos, mostly by assistants (who were rotated between paintings) but with a final finish by Hirst.<ref name=science>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Also in 2005, Hirst founded the art book publisher Other Criteria.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>

In February 2006, he opened a major show in Mexico, at the Hilario Galguera Gallery, called The Death of God, Towards a Better Understanding of Life without God aboard The Ship of Fools, an exhibition that attracted considerable media coverage as Hirst's first show in Latin America.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In June that year, he exhibited alongside the work of Francis Bacon (Triptychs) at the Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street, London, an exhibition that included the vitrine, A Thousand Years (1990), and four triptychs: paintings, medicine cabinets and a new formaldehyde work entitled The Tranquility of Solitude (For George Dyer), influenced by Bacon.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

File:Hirst-Love-Of-God.jpg

For the Love of God by Damien Hirst (2007)

A Thousand Years (1990)<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 142.</ref> contains an actual life cycle. Maggots hatch inside a white minimal box, turn into flies, then feed on a bloody, severed cow's head on the floor of a claustrophobic glass vitrine. Above, hatched flies buzz around in the closed space. Many meet a violent end in an insect-o-cutor; others survive to continue the cycle.<ref>Keats, Jonathon (20 July 2012), "Is Damien Hirst The World's Most Misunderstood Artist?" Forbes</ref> A Thousand Years was admired by Bacon, who in a letter to a friend a month before he died, wrote about the experience of seeing the work at the Saatchi Gallery in London.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Margarita Coppack notes that "It is as if Bacon, a painter with no direct heir in that medium, was handing the baton on to a new generation."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Hirst has openly acknowledged his debt to Bacon,<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 86.</ref> absorbing the painter's visceral images and obsessions early on and giving them concrete existence in sculptural form with works like A Thousand Years.<ref name=gagosian>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hirst gained the world record for the most expensive work of art by a living artist—his Lullaby Spring in June 2007,<ref name = BBC070622>Template:Cite news</ref> when a 3-metre-wide steel cabinet with 6,136 pills sold for 19.2 million dollars to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar.<ref name = BBC070622/>

In June 2007, Beyond Belief, an exhibition of Hirst's new work, opened at the White Cube gallery in London. The centre-piece, a Memento Mori titled For the Love of God, was a human skull recreated in platinum and adorned with 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats.<ref>Beyond Belief https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/damien_hirst_masons_yard_hoxton_square_2007</ref> Approximately £15,000,000 worth of diamonds were used. It was modelled on an 18th-century skull, but the only surviving human part of the original is the teeth. The asking price for For the Love of God was £50,000,000 ($100 million or 75 million euros). It didn't sell outright,<ref name=thornton>Thornton, Sarah. "Damien Hirst is rewriting the rules of the market (2)", 'The Art Newspaper, 17 July 2008. Retrieved 11 August 2008.</ref> and on 30 August 2008 was sold to a consortium that included Hirst himself and his gallery White Cube.<ref name=thornton/>

In November 2008, the skull was exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam next to an exhibition of paintings from the museum collection selected by Hirst. Wim Pijbes, the museum director, said of the exhibition, "It boosts our image. Of course, we do the Old Masters but we are not a 'yesterday institution'. It's for now. And Damien Hirst shows this in a very strong way."<ref>(1 June 2009). "The project team: Communicating Hirst at the Rijksmuseum", Art, Design & Publicity. Retrieved 15 December 2009.</ref>

Responding to this show at the Rijksmuseum and to the piece more generally in a feature-length article on the entwined histories of European art and double-entry bookkeeping, the art historian Rachel Cohen wrote:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Two years [after the sale of For the Love of God], with financial markets imploding on every side, it was reported that the work had in fact been sold to a holding company that turned out to consist of Hirst's gallerist, his business manager, his friend the Russian billionaire art collector Viktor Pinchuk, and Hirst himself. There were then those who, staring at their own newly empty stock portfolios, found in the title apt expression of their feelings. The work itself, with its diamond-laden eye sockets and its original inhabitant's grinning teeth, seems unperturbed by any hollowness of value in the financial or art markets. It does not matter to this cynical epitome of our glittering age whether it was made for the love of anything but more zeroes.

In December 2008, Hirst contacted the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) demanding action be taken over works containing images of his skull sculpture For the Love of God made by a 16-year-old graffiti artist, Cartrain, and sold on the internet gallery 100artworks.com. On the advice of his gallery, Cartrain handed over the artworks to DACS and forfeited the £200 he had made; he said, "I met Christian Zimmermann [from DACS] who told me Hirst personally ordered action on the matter."<ref name="Indy1">Akbar, Arifa. (6 December 2008). 'Hirst demands share of artist's £65 copies' The Independent. Retrieved 6 December 2008.</ref> In June 2009, copyright lawyer Paul Tackaberry compared the two images and said, "This is fairly non-contentious legally. Ask yourself, what portion of the original–and not just the quantity but also the quality–appears in the new work? If a 'substantial portion' of the 'original' appears in the new work, then that's all you need for copyright infringement... Quantitatively about 80% of the skull is in the second image."<ref name=preece/>

In April – September 2009, the exhibition Requiem took place in the Victor Pinchuk art centre.

In October 2009, Hirst revealed that he had been painting with his own hand in a style influenced by Francis Bacon for several years. His show of these paintings, No Love Lost, was at the Wallace Collection in London.<ref name="Hudson091014">Hudson, Mark. "It couldn't get worse for Damien Hirst", The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 2009.</ref>

2010–2014

In 2011, Damien Hirst designed the cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album I'm with You.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

File:The Future of Art - Damien Hirst.jpg

Hirst in the 2010 documentary: The Future of Art

Hirst's representation of the British Union Flag formed the arena centrepiece for the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In January 2013, Hirst became the third British artist to design the Brit Awards statue using his signature NEO-Pop art style inspired by his 2000 LSD "spot painting."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In October 2014, Hirst exhibited big scale capsules, pills and medicines at the Paul Stolper Gallery titled, Schizophrenogenesis.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

2015–present

In April 2016, a study published in Analytical Methods claimed Hirst's preserved carcasses leaked formaldehyde gas above legal limits at Tate Modern; however, this study was shown to be flawed.<ref>"Damien Hirst formaldehyde artworks 'posed no risk to public'", BBC. Retrieved 17 July 2016.</ref>

In 2017, he organised with Pinault Foundation a solo exhibition, in Venice contemporarily to the Biennale in two places in the city: Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. The title was Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, purporting to present ancient treasures from a sunken Greek ship, with pieces that range from Ancient Egyptian-alike items to Disney character reproductions, encrusted with shells and corals.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In July 2021 through January 2022, Hirst's series Cherry Blossoms was exhibited at the Foundation Cartier in Paris.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The exhibition was then moved to the National Art Center in Tokyo in 2022. The show marked Hirst's first major solo exhibition in Japan.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

This artwork features a large tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde. The tank in which the shark is floating creates the illusion of the animal being cut into three pieces due to the container looking like three separate sections. The work was created in 1991, and since then, the formaldehyde preserving the shark has slowly eaten away at the animal's body, which shows signs of decay.<ref name="Natural History">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hirst says that the formaldehyde surrounding the shark is the process of death and decay.<ref name=vogel/>

Some critics argue that the minimalistic qualities of the work, coinciding with the 'stereotypical' death theme, are too bland for such a prestigious artist. One critic wrote, "But the famous shark, shackled to its coffeebar-existentialist title – The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – seems ever more dilapidated, more fairground sideshow, with every dowdy showing. What clichéd menace it may once have theoretically possessed has evaporated."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Another art critic, Luke White, disagrees, saying that others had earlier perceived sharks "...as ugly and dangerous, but by the end of the century, they found them instead exhilarating, fascinating, and sublime." White argues that sharks have been seen as transcendent, awe-inspiring creatures throughout centuries, a creature that is the embodiment of sublimitudeTemplate:Clarify as well as a metaphorical representation of our mind helps,Template:Clarify relaying the importance of how special our thoughts really are.Template:Verification needed<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Beautiful Inside My Head Forever

Beautiful Inside My Head Forever was a two-day auction of Hirst's new work at Sotheby's, London, taking place on 15 and 16 September 2008.<ref name=akbar1>Akbar, Arifa. (16 September 2008). "A formaldehyde frenzy as buyers snap up Hirst works", The Independent. Retrieved 16 September 2008.</ref> It was unusual as he bypassed galleries and sold directly to the public.<ref name=singh>Singh, Anita. "Damien Hirst auction expected to fetch £65 million", The Daily Telegraph, 29 July 2008.</ref> Writing in The Independent, Cahal Milmo said that the idea of the auction was conceived by Hirst's business advisor of 13 years, Frank Dunphy, who had to overcome Hirst's initial reluctance about the idea.<ref>Milmo, Cahal. "Mr 10 per cent (and he's worth every penny)", The Independent, 18 September 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2010.</ref> Hirst eventually defended the concept and refuted the accusation that he was only interested in making money:

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The sale raised £111 million ($198 million) for 218 items.<ref name=parsons/> The auction exceeded expectations,<ref name=parsons>Parsons, Neal. (16 September 2008). "Update 1-Hirst's London art sale defies economic blues". Reuters. Retrieved 16 September 2008.</ref> and was ten times higher than the existing Sotheby's record for a single artist sale,<ref name=prop>The Sunday Times. (21 September 2008). "Hirst dealers bolster prices at record sale", The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 February 2009.</ref> occurring as the financial markets plunged.<ref name=prop/> The Sunday Times said that Hirst's business colleagues had "propped up"<ref name=prop/> the sale prices, making purchases or bids which totalled over half of the £70.5 million spent on the first sale day:<ref name=prop/> Harry Blain of the Haunch of Venison gallery said that bids were entered on behalf of clients wishing to acquire the work.<ref name=prop/>

Hirst art collecting

In November 2006, Hirst was curator of In the darkest hour there may be light, shown at the Serpentine Gallery, London, the first public exhibition of (a small part of) his own collection.<ref>Spears-Meers, Emily. Template:Usurped, Oxonian Review, 1 March 2007. Retrieved 29 December 2010.</ref> Now known as the 'murderme collection', this significant accumulation of works spans several generations of international artists, from well-known figures such as Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince, Banksy and Andy Warhol, to British painters such as John Bellany, John Hoyland, and Gary Hume,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and artists in earlier stages of their careers Rachel Howard,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> David Choe, Ross Minoru Laing, Nicholas Lumb, Tom Ormond, and Dan Baldwin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hirst is currently restoring the Grade I listed Toddington Manor, near Cheltenham, where he intends to eventually house the complete collection.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2007, Hirst donated the 1991 sculptures The Acquired Inability to Escape and Life Without You and the 2002 work Who is Afraid of the Dark? (fly painting), and an exhibition copy from 2007 of Mother and Child Divided to Tate from his own personal collection of works.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2010, Hirst was among the unsuccessful bidders to take over the Magazine Building, a 19th-century structure in Kensington Gardens, which reopened in 2013 as the Serpentine Sackler Gallery after its conversion by Zaha Hadid.<ref name="theartnewspaper.com">Gareth Harris (22 July 2014), [1] The Art Newspaper.</ref> In March 2012, he outlined his plans to open a gallery in Vauxhall, London specifically designed to exhibit his personal collection, which includes five pieces by Francis Bacon. The Newport Street Gallery opened in October 2015. It is located in a former theater carpentry and scenery production workshops redesigned by Peter St John and Adam Caruso, and runs the length of Newport Street in Vauxhall.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="theartnewspaper.com"/>

Awards and recognition

Hirst was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1992, for his first Young British Artists exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in North London, which included his The Physical Impossibility of Death..., with the award going to Grenville Davey that year.<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 70.</ref>

Hirst won the Turner Prize in 1995.<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 15.</ref> He was asked to represent the UK in the Venice Biennale in 1999 or to become a Royal Academian but refused.<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 73.</ref>

In 2012, Hirst was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his album cover for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Critical responses

Positive

Hirst has been praised in recognition of his celebrity and the way this has galvanised interest in the arts, raising the profile of British art and helping to (re)create the image of "Cool Britannia." In the mid-1990s, the Heritage Secretary, Virginia Bottomley recognised him as "a pioneer of the British art movement", and even sheep farmers were pleased he had raised increased interest in British lamb.<ref name=hirstfor/> Janet Street-Porter praised his originality, which had brought art to new audiences and was the "art-world equivalent of the Oasis concerts at Earl's Court".<ref name=hirstfor/>

Andres Serrano is also known for shocking work and understands that contemporary fame does not necessarily equate to lasting fame, but backs Hirst: "Damien is very clever ... First you get the attention ... Whether or not it will stand the test of time, I don't know, but I think it will."<ref name=hirstfor/> Sir Nicholas Serota commented, "Damien is something of a showman ... It is very difficult to be an artist when there is huge public and media attention. Because Damien Hirst has been built up as a very important figure, there are plenty of sceptics ready to put the knife in."<ref name=hirstfor>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Tracey Emin said: "There is no comparison between him and me; he developed a whole new way of making art and he's clearly in a league of his own. It would be like making comparisons with Warhol."<ref name=independent>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Despite Hirst's insults to him, Saatchi remains a staunch supporter, labelling Hirst a genius,<ref name=hirstfor/> and stating:

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Hirst was among the names in Blake Gopnik's 2011 list "The 10 Most Important Artists of Today", with Gopnik interpreting Hirst's career as "a metaphor for how consumption has become our guiding force".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Negative

There has been equally vehement opposition to Hirst's work. Of Hirst's work, the former Evening Standard art critic, Brian Sewell, expressed the following: "I don't think of it as art ... It is no more interesting than a stuffed pike over a pub door. Indeed there may well be more art in a stuffed pike than a dead sheep."<ref name="hirstagainst">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Stuckist art group was founded in 1999 with a specific anti-Britart agenda by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish;<ref name=manifesto>Stuckist anti-Britart manifesto, 4 August 1999. Retrieved 20 March 2006.</ref> Hirst is one of their main targets. They wrote (referring to a Channel 4 programme on Hirst):

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File:Stuckist International Gallery 2003 (shark 1).jpg

A Dead Shark Isn't Art, Stuckism International Gallery 2003<ref name="alberge-shark"/>

In 2003, under the title A Dead Shark Isn't Art, the Stuckism International Gallery exhibited a shark which had first been put on public display two years before Hirst's by Eddie Saunders in his Shoreditch shop, JD Electrical Supplies. Thomson asked, "If Hirst's shark is recognised as great art, then how come Eddie's, which was on exhibition for two years beforehand, isn't? Do we perhaps have here an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first, or is it that a dead shark isn't art at all?"<ref name="alberge-shark">Alberge, Dalya. (10 April 2003). "Traditionalists mark shark attack on Hirst", The Times. Retrieved 6 February 2008.</ref> The Stuckists suggested that Hirst may have got the idea for his work from Saunders' shop display.<ref name=deadshark>"A Dead Shark Isn't Art" Stuckism International web site. Retrieved 20 March 2006.</ref>

In a 2008 Channel 4 documentary called The Mona Lisa Curse, art critic Robert Hughes claimed that Hirst's work was "tacky" and "absurd". Hughes said it was "a little miracle" that the value of £5 million was put on Hirst's Virgin Mother (a 35-foot bronze statue), which was made by someone "with so little facility".<ref name="hughes1">Template:Cite news</ref> Hughes called Hirst's shark in formaldehyde "the world's most over-rated marine organism" and attacked the artist for "functioning like a commercial brand", making the case that Hirst and his work proved that financial value was now the only meaning that remained for art.<ref name=hughes1/>

Hirst's 2009 show, No Love Lost, of paintings by his own hand, at the Wallace Collection in London, received "one of the most unanimously negative responses to any exhibition in living memory".<ref name = Hudson091014/> Tom Lubbock of The Independent called Hirst's work derivative, weak and boring:<ref name=pressviews>"Press views: Damien Hirst's paintings", BBC, 4 October 2009. Retrieved 25 December 2009.</ref> "Hirst, as a painter, is at about the level of a not-very-promising, first-year art student."<ref name=pressviews/> Rachel Campbell-Johnston of The Times said it was "shockingly bad".<ref name=pressviews/> A 2012 exhibition of paintings by Hirst at the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey, entitled "Two Weeks One Summer", provoked in The Guardian the comment that Hirst "can kid himself he is an Old Master and have the art world go along with the fantasy".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Julian Spalding, British art critic and author of the book Con Art – Why You Should Sell Your Damien Hirsts While You Can,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web

}}</ref> has said,

It's often been proposed, seriously, that Damien Hirst is a greater artist than Michelangelo because he had the idea for a shark in a tank whereas Michelangelo didn't have the idea for his David ... [but] The emperor has nothing on. When the penny drops that these are not art, it's all going to collapse. Hirst should not be in the Tate. He's not an artist. What separates Michelangelo from Hirst is that Michelangelo was an artist and Hirst isn't.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Hirst's 2012 retrospective at the Tate Gallery, while setting records for attendance, also received many complaints. "Members of the public wrote to the state-funded gallery accusing it of wasting taxpayers' money by showcasing art that was 'repetitive', 'meaningless' and 'almost universally awful'."<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

Hirst's work has also been a frequent subject of criticism in the tabloid press. A Daily Mail headline read: "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all." Norman Tebbit, commenting on the Sensation exhibition, wrote "Have they gone stark raving mad? The works of the 'artist' are lumps of dead animals. There are thousands of young artists who didn't get a look in, presumably because their work was too attractive to sane people. Modern art experts never learn."<ref name="hirstagainst" />

Backdating claims

In March 2024, The Guardian reported that four of Hirst's formaldehyde animal works, which were dated to the 1990s by Hirst's company Science Ltd., were actually made in 2017. The four works in question were made by preserving in formaldehyde a dove, two sharks, and two calves.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In response, Science Ltd. claimed that the dates the artist had assigned to these works did not represent the dates they were made, but rather the dates they were conceived.<ref name=":0" />

In May 2024, The Guardian revealed that at least 1,000 paintings of colorful dots on A4 paper, which were part of an art project called The Currency, that Hirst had repeatedly claimed were "made in 2016" and that had the year '2016' inscribed on them along with Hirst's signature were in fact created several years later than claimed.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> In response, lawyers for Hirst and Science Ltd. did not dispute that at least 1,000 of the paintings dated from 2016 were created years later, but argued that it was Hirst's "usual practice" to date works from a conceptual art project with the date of the project's conception.<ref name=":1" />

Appropriation and plagiarism claims

In 1999, chef Marco Pierre White said Hirst's Butterflies on Mars had plagiarised his own work, Rising Sun, which he then put on display in the restaurant Quo Vadis in place of Hirst's work.<ref name=difference>Alberge, Dalya. (14 August 2003). "Spot the difference as artist accuses Hirst of copying", The Times. Retrieved 8 February 2008.</ref>

In 2000, Hirst was sued for breach of copyright over his sculpture, Hymn, which was a Template:Convert, six ton, enlargement of his son Connor's 14" Young Scientist Anatomy Set, designed by Norman Emms, 10,000 of which are sold a year by Hull-based toy manufacturer Humbrol for £14.99 each.<ref name=emms/> Hirst paid an undisclosed sum to two charities, Children Nationwide and the Toy Trust, in an out-of-court settlement,<ref name=emms/> as well as a "goodwill payment" to Emms.<ref name=difference/> The charitable donation was less than Emms had hoped for. Hirst also agreed to restrictions on further reproductions of his sculpture.<ref name=emms/>

In 2006, a graphic artist and former research associate at the Royal College of Art, Robert Dixon, author of 'Mathographics', alleged that Hirst's print Valium had "unmistakable similarities" to one of his own designs. Hirst's manager contested this by explaining the origin of Hirst's piece was from a book The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry (1991)—not realising this was one place where Dixon's design had been published.<ref name=difference/><ref name=alberge>Alberge, Dalya. (27 June 2007). "My old friend Damien stole my skull idea", The Times. Retrieved 10 December 2007.</ref>

File:LeKaySpiritus2.jpg

Spiritus Callidus#2 by John Lekay, 1993, crystal skull

In 2007, artist John LeKay, a friend of Damien Hirst between 1992 and 1994, was reported by Dalya Alberge of The Times to have provided ideas and inspirations for a variety of his later works, including having given him a "marked-up duplicate copy" of a Carolina Biological Supply Company catalogue that LeKay had been using as inspiration and supply for his work, noting that "You have no idea how much he got from this catalogue. The Cow Divided is on page 647—it is a model of a cow divided down the centre, like his piece", a reference to Hirst's work Mother and Child, Divided, a cow and calf cut in half and placed in formaldehyde.<ref name=alberge/> LeKay also suggests that Hirst copied the idea of For the Love of God from his work on crystal skulls in 1993, saying, "I would like Damien to acknowledge that 'John really did inspire the skull and influenced my work a lot.'"<ref name=alberge/> Copyright lawyer Paul Tackaberry reviewed images of LeKay's and Hirst's work and saw no basis for any appropriation rising to the legal level of a copyright infringement.<ref name=preece>Preece, Robert. (June 2009). 'Reality check: When appropriation becomes copyright infringement'. Sculpture magazine/AD&P. Retrieved 19 June 2009.</ref>

In 2010, in 3:AM Magazine and in The Jackdaw, Charles Thomson argued that there are 15 cases where Hirst plagiarised the work of others, including his enlarged version of an anatomical torso model, Hymn (1999) which Thomson presents alongside a comparable John LeKay's anatomical torso model from Carolina Science, Yin and Yang (1990), and Hirst's In Nomine Patris [In the Name of the Father] (2005), which presents a split-open crucified sheep in a tank of formaldehyde, after John LeKay's comparably posed split-open crucified sheep, entitled This is My Body, This is My Blood (1987) mounted on a wooden board.<ref name="Thomson3AMpt1">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name = Thomson3AMpt2>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=claims>Alberge, Dalya. "Damien Hirst faces eight new claims of plagiarism" The Guardian, 2 September 2010. Retrieved 2 September 2010.</ref> Other examples cited were the similarity of Hirst's cabinets with shelves and bottles, e.g., My Way (1991), which expanded to become his room-size installation, Pharmacy (1992), which Thomson relates to a Joseph Cornell display of cabinet with shelves and bottles, Pharmacy (1943); and Hirst's appropriation of concept from Lori Precious, who had made stained-glass window effects from butterfly wings from 1994, a number of years before Hirst. The art gallery lemon sky: projects + editions exhibited a selection of these works by Precious at the Year 06 Contemporary Art Fair in London in October 2006, where these pieces were viewed by a large audience and would have been seen at that time, to have credibly been plagiarized.<ref name = Thomson3AMpt1/><ref name = Thomson3AMpt2/><ref name=claims/> Thomson also suggested that Hirst's spin paintings and installation of a ball on a jet of air were not original, since similar pieces had been made in the 1960s.<ref name = Thomson3AMpt1/><ref name = Thomson3AMpt2/><ref name=claims/><ref>Daily Telegraph Staff, "Damien Hirst faces new plagiarism claims," The Daily Telegraph, 3 September 2010</ref> A spokesperson for Hirst said the article was "poor journalism" and that Hirst would be making a "comprehensive" rebuttal of the claims.<ref>"Damien Hirst art works 'inspired by others'", BBC, 2 September 2010. Retrieved 3 September 2010.</ref>

In May 2017 Hirst was accused of copying and appropriating Yoruba art from Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in his work Golden Heads (Female), which was on display in his exhibition Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at the Venice Biennale.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="auto">Template:Cite news</ref> The work, said critics, was not given appropriate context for viewers.<ref name="auto"/>

Commenting on his collection, Hirst has said, "As a human being, as you go through life, you just do collect. It was that sort of entropic collecting that I found myself interested in, just amassing stuff while you're alive."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2022 artist and writer Joe Machine accused Hirst of plagiarism of his cherry blossom paintings, the 16th accusation of plagiarism against Hirst.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hirst business ventures

Work philosophy

Although Hirst participated physically in the making of early works,<ref>Blanché, Ulrich (2018). Damien Hirst. Gallery Art in a Material World. Baden-Baden, DEU: Tectum Verlag, p. 181.</ref> he has always needed assistants—for instance, Carl Freedman helped with the first vitrines<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>—and the current volume of work produced necessitates a "factory" setup.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> This has led to questions about authenticity, as was highlighted in 1997, when a spin painting that Hirst said was a "forgery" appeared at sale,Template:Citation needed although he had previously said that he often had nothing to do with the creation of these pieces.Template:Citation needed

Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself because, "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it"; he described his efforts as "shite"—"They're shit compared to ... the best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel." He also describes another painting assistant who was leaving and asked for one of the paintings. Hirst told her to, "'make one of your own.' And she said, 'No, I want one of yours.' But the only difference, between one painted by her and one of mine, is the money.'"<ref name=work/> By February 1999, two assistants had painted 300 spot paintings. Hirst sees the real creative act as being the conception, not the execution, and that, as the progenitor of the idea, he is therefore the artist:

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Hirst is also known to volunteer repair work on his projects after a client has made a purchase. For example, this service was offered in the case of the suspended shark purchased by Steven A. Cohen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Restaurant ventures

Hirst had a short-lived partnership with chef Marco Pierre White in the restaurant Quo Vadis. His best-known restaurant involvement was Pharmacy, located in Notting Hill, London, which closed in 2004. Although one of the owners, Hirst had only leased his art work to the restaurant, so he was able to retrieve and sell it at a Sotheby's auction, earning over £11 million. Some of the work had been adapted, e.g. by signing it prior to the auction.<ref name=Laplaca>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hirst is a co-owner of the seafood restaurant, 11 The Quay, in the English seaside town of Ilfracombe.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2016, Damien Hirst designed the interiors of his new restaurant Pharmacy 2 at the Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, London.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Net worth

Art by Hirst sold at his auction in 2008, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, raised US$198 million. It is said to be the largest amount raised by any living artist to date.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hirst is reputed to be the richest living artist to date.<ref name=insanity>Graham-Dixon, Andrew. "Artworld insanity", The Sunday Telegraph, p. 28, 21 September 2008.</ref> In 2009, the annually collated chart of the wealthiest individuals in Britain and Ireland, Sunday Times Rich List, placed Hirst at joint number 238 with a net worth of £235m.<ref>"2009 Rich List search"Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore, The Times. Retrieved 22 March 2010.</ref> Hirst's wealth was valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, making him Britain's wealthiest artist.<ref name="entertainment.timesonline" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Works published, shown, sold

Written

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Art

His works include: Template:Div col

• Pharmacy (1992), a life-size recreation of a chemist's shop.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Away from the Flock (1994), composed of a dead sheep in a glass tank of formaldehyde.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Beautiful Axe, Slash, Gosh Painting (1999), signed on the reverse. Gloss household paint on canvas.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• The Virgin Mother, a massive sculpture depicting a pregnant woman, with layers removed from one side to expose the fetus, muscle and tissue layers, and skull underneath. This work was purchased by real estate magnate Aby Rosen for display on the plaza of one of his properties, the Lever House, in New York City.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Painting-By-Numbers (2001), a do-it-yourself painting kit comprising a stamped canvas, brushes, and 90 paint tins in plexiglass designed to make a 'dot' painting.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Part of the exhibition was binned by a gallery cleaner who mistook it for trash.<ref name="cleaner">"Cleaner clears up Hirst's ashtray art" The Guardian (London), 19 October 2001. Retrieved 19 October 2001.</ref>
• The Dream (2008), a simulated unicorn in a tank of formaldehyde solution.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Spin Drawing for Women's Equality (2016), auctioned as a fundraiser for the Women's Equality Party.<ref name=Art_160316>Template:Cite news</ref>
• The Empathy Suite (2019), a 9,000-square-foot hotel suite at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, designed by Hirst and filled with his artworks on nearly every surface.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Butterfly Rainbow (2020).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Div col end

Personal life

Between 1992 and 2012, Hirst lived with his American girlfriend, Maia Norman, with whom he has three sons, born 1995, 2000 and 2005.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Better source needed

Since becoming a father, Hirst has spent most of his time at his remote farmhouse near Combe Martin in Devon. Hirst and Norman were never married,<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> although Hirst had referred to Norman as his "common-law wife".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hirst has admitted serious drug and alcohol problems during a ten-year period from the early 1990s: "I started taking cocaine and drink... I turned into a babbling fucking wreck."<ref name=work>Template:Cite book</ref> During this time he was known for his wild behaviour and eccentric acts including, for example, putting a cigarette in the end of his penis in front of journalists.<ref>Leith, William. "Avoiding the Sharks", Life: The Observer Magazine, p. 15, 14 February 1999.</ref>

He is a friend of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and 7-time World Snooker Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Charitable work

Hirst is a supporter of the indigenous rights organisation, Survival International.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In September 2008, Hirst donated the work, Beautiful Love Survival, at the Sotheby's London sale, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, to raise money for this organisation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Later, he also contributed his writing to the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in October 2009, in support of Survival. The book explores the existence of, and threats to, indigenous cultures around the world.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2016 he donated artworks for the secret auction of Art on a Postcard,<ref>Art on a Postcard</ref> a charity supporting the fight against Hepatitis C.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

NFTs

In July 2021 Hirst announced his first NFT project, named The Currency: it consisted of 10,000 unique hand-painted dot-covered works on paper, each one corresponding to a non-fungible token. Two months later, the project earned a total of $25,000,000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hirst instructed those who bought pieces from his latest collection to choose either the physical artwork or the NFT representing it. Buyers were informed that corresponding artworks for the unexchanged NFTs would be destroyed, with the first 1,000 artworks being burned on 11 October, 2022. He streamed the burning of his physical pieces on Instagram live from his London gallery and is set to burn thousands more of his artworks to complete the transformation of the selected artworks so they can exist solely as NFTs.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It has been estimated the works being burned are collectively worth almost £10 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Charles Saatchi
• Stuckist
• John LeKay
• Young British Artists

Further reading

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External links

• Official Damien Hirst Website Template:Webarchive
• Damien Hirst's Pharmacy on Tate interactive site
• Damien Hirst at Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, September 2011
• Damien Hirst. Retrospective at Tate Modern, London / UK, Video Damien Hirst. Retrospective at Tate Modern, London, 2012
• Damien Hirst. Talking about his Art, released in different episodes during the Winter 2021. Video released by art critic and curator dr Alain Chivilò
• Shark in Damien Hirst, short documentary released in 2022 by art critic and curator dr Alain Chivilò