Damien Hirst is a British artist based between London, Gloucestershire and Devon. Since gaining recognition as one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the late 1980s, Damien Hirst's art has consisted of installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings dealing with death, science, beauty and life.
Damien Hirst is a British artist based between London, Gloucestershire and Devon. Since gaining recognition as one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the late 1980s, Damien Hirst's art has consisted of installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings dealing with death, science, beauty and life.
Hirst is one of the most celebrated, rich and notorious British artists of the 21st century, with major retrospectives including ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy,’ at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, the show ‘For the Love of God’ at the Tate Modern, as well as over 80 solo exhibitions and 260 group shows to his name. Hirst studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and has pursued a risk-taking approach to making art that has resulted in numerous headlines and record-breaking prices. In 1995 Hirst received the Turner Prize with an exhibition featuring 'Mother and Child (Divided)' (1993), a set of four tanks containing the bisected and preserved halves of a cow and calf. Hirst is unafraid to explore the uncertainties of the human experience and the inevitability of death. His early photographic work 'With Dead Head' (1991) shows the young artist posing next to a corpse, smiling. This intentionally disturbing image set a precedent for the rest of Hirst’s career and encapsulates his intentions to shock and tackle taboos. Hirst's vulnerability and curiosity with the human condition inevitably shines through in his artwork, from his iconic multicoloured spots to animals preserved in tanks of formaldehyde.
When he was younger, Hirst had a part-time job at a morgue.
Hirst got an ‘E’ grade for Art at school and didn't get into Goldsmiths College the first time he applied.
Hirst raised £8 million for NHS charities during the pandemic in 2020 with his art.
“Art’s about life and it can’t really be about anything else … there isn’t anything else.”
Art collector, dealer and businessman Charles Saatchi gave Hirst an almost unlimited budget at the beginning of his career.
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
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ARTIST FEATURE: DAMIEN HIRST First springing onto the art scene in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Damien Hirst is now very much a household name. Hirst’s work spans multiple mediums, from detailed drawings and colourful paintings to thought-provoking sculptures and eerie installations. A recurring theme throughout his pieces is death and its blatant inevitability; many of his works explore the link between death, life, science and the overall human experience. From his beginnings as a fine art student in London to exhibiting at some of the top galleries around the world today, here we take a look at what you need ...
