Facts about Damien Hirst
- 12
Fourteen gilded bronze casts of Hirst's dissected anatomical sculptures were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1993, establishing his international reputation within the contemporary art world.
- 11
Damien Hirst created his infamous spot paintings series by having studio assistants apply colored dots to canvases using a mechanical system inspired by pharmaceutical manufacturing processes.
- 10
Damien Hirst's 1990 installation Mother and Child Divided featured a bisected cow and calf preserved in separate glass tanks of formaldehyde, each half displayed on opposite sides of the gallery space.
- 09
Butterfly-shaped pharmaceutical pills inspired Damien Hirst's 2005 painting series featuring oversized drug tablets, directly referencing his critique of the pharmaceutical industry and consumer culture.
- 08
During the 1990s, Damien Hirst's spot paintings series comprised over 1,400 individual canvases, each featuring precisely arranged colored dots applied by assistants working in his studio factory system.
- 07
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living required complete replacement of its formaldehyde and shark in 2006 after the original specimen began deteriorating.
- 06
Damien Hirst's 2008 auction at Sotheby's London generated 111.5 million pounds across 223 lots, setting a record for a single-artist sale conducted without reserve prices.
- 05
Hirst's 1997 artwork A Thousand Years featured a glass box containing a cow's head, maggots, and a light trap where flies would breed and die in a continuous cycle.
- 04
Between 2008 and 2011, Damien Hirst created over 2,000 paintings by spinning canvases on a motorized turntable, a mechanical process he called his spin paintings series.
- 03
Damien Hirst's 2012 exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London marked his first major institutional show in a historic art museum, featuring over 120 works spanning two decades.
- 02
Damien Hirst preserved a tiger shark in formaldehyde for his 1991 artwork The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, measuring 4.3 meters long.
- 01
In 1995, Damien Hirst's diamond skull artwork sold for 15.2 million pounds at auction, becoming one of the most expensive works by a living artist.