Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst, born in Bristol, UK, has been deemed the richest living artist today and is labelled as a top British artist - he even designed a recent album cover for the world-famous musician Drake.

During his time being a student at Goldsmith's College in 1988, he put together a now prominent student exhibition called 'Freeze' for which he united some young artists who later became known as the Young British Artists (YBAs).

Hirst held his first solo exhibition at the Woodstock Street Gallery in 1991 called 'In and Out of Love' in which he filled the gallery with an abundance of live tropical butterflies. In 1992, Hirst was part of the YBAs exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery then in 1995 he was finally awarded the Tate Gallery Turner Price after being a nominee for 3 years. In 2012, the Tate Modern in London held his first museum retrospective exhibition then in 2015 he opened his own art space called the Newport Street Gallery. Hirst's most famous works are his paintings, glass tank installations and medicine cabinet sculptures. His paintings tend to take on two styles - Spot paintings and Spin paintings; one Spot painting named "N-(9-Acridinyl) Maleimide" sold at Phillips in October 2021 for £736,400.

Artwork