About Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst (b. 1965) is Britain’s most famous living artist and a defining figure of contemporary art. Emerging as the provocative enfant terrible of the Young British Artists (YBAs), Hirst is internationally renowned as a conceptual artist, painter, printmaker, and sculptor. His work confronts themes of mortality, beauty, science, medicine, and belief, often courting controversy while reshaping public perceptions of contemporary art. Through a masterful use of self-promotion, Hirst redefined the role of the artist as a global cultural entrepreneur, blurring boundaries between creativity and commerce.

Alongside fellow YBAs Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, and Liam Gillick, Hirst rose to prominence in the late 1980s. While studying at Goldsmiths College, University of London, he curated the seminal Freeze exhibition in 1988, a turning point in British contemporary art. The exhibition attracted the attention of collector Charles Saatchi, who became an early patron. Influenced by Marcel Duchamp and the concept of the readymade, Hirst produced some of his most controversial works using dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. In 1995, he won the Turner Prize for Mother and Child (Divided), and his preserved shark, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), became the centerpiece of Sensation at the Royal Academy in 1997.

Beyond large-scale installations, Damien Hirst is also celebrated for his paintings and highly collectible limited edition prints. Iconic series such as the Spot Paintings and Butterfly Prints explore repetition, chance, order, and the cycle of life. Produced in carefully controlled editions, these works remain central to his practice and highly sought after by collectors. Today, Hirst continues to be one of the most influential and debated figures in contemporary art, with artworks that remain globally recognized, exhibited, and collected.

Notable exhibitions

Damien Hirst’s art has been the subject of some of the most high-profile exhibitions in contemporary art. His breakthrough came with Freeze (1988), the student-curated show that launched the Young British Artists and brought him to public attention. In 1997, his preserved shark became the centerpiece of Sensation at the Royal Academy in London, one of the most influential and controversial exhibitions of the decade.

In 2012, Tate Modern hosted Damien Hirst, a major retrospective that traced his career from early installations to his spot paintings and butterfly works, drawing record audiences. The following year, the retrospective traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, further cementing his international reputation.

More recently, Hirst staged the ambitious Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (2017) across both Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, blending myth, spectacle, and contemporary sculpture on an unprecedented scale. His works have also been featured at leading institutions worldwide, including the Whitechapel Gallery, the Gagosian galleries, and the Fondation Cartier in Paris.