Damien Hirst Biography Quotes 21 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Damien Steven Hirst was born on 7 June 1965 in Bristol, England, and grew up in Leeds. From an early age he was drawn to images of anatomy and the dynamics of life and death, interests that later became central to his art. After a foundation course at Jacob Kramer College in Leeds, he moved to London to study Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, where the conceptual approach promoted by tutors such as Michael Craig-Martin widened his sense of what art could be. While a student he took a job in a mortuary, an experience that sharpened his fascination with mortality and the clinical aesthetics of science.

Emergence with the YBAs
In 1988, while still at Goldsmiths, Hirst organized the exhibition Freeze in a disused Docklands building. It brought together a cohort of ambitious young artists who would soon be labeled the Young British Artists, among them close contemporaries such as Gary Hume, Fiona Rae, and Mat Collishaw, with whom Hirst maintained long-standing friendships. The show caught the attention of collector Charles Saatchi, whose support during the early 1990s helped propel Hirst and his peers into the center of the London art scene. Alongside Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin, and Angus Fairhurst, Hirst became a defining figure of a generation that embraced shock, spectacle, and the readymade.

Signature Works and Themes
Hirsts vocabulary coalesced quickly. A Thousand Years (1990) presented a life cycle of flies within a vitrine, while The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) suspended a tiger shark in formaldehyde, becoming an icon of the decade. He developed the Medicine Cabinets and the Pharmaceutical or Spot Paintings, serial systems that alluded to the promises and anxieties of medical science. Other bodies of work included Spin Paintings, produced with mechanical rigs, and butterfly installations such as In and Out of Love (1991), in which living butterflies hatched, fed, and died within the gallery. Mother and Child (Divided) (1993), a bisected cow and calf in formaldehyde, combined visceral confrontation with classical sculpture. In 2007 he unveiled For the Love of God, a platinum skull set with diamonds, an extreme meditation on value, belief, and mortality.

Institutions, Patrons, and Dealers
Throughout the 1990s Hirsts work appeared in major exhibitions in London and abroad. Support from Charles Saatchi proved pivotal, culminating in the Royal Academys Sensation exhibition drawn from the Saatchi Collection in 1997. The Tate, under the leadership of Nicholas Serota, exhibited and acquired key works, consolidating a legacy for the YBAs within national collections. Gallerists Jay Jopling of White Cube and Larry Gagosian amplified Hirsts international profile, while business manager Frank Dunphy became a key strategist behind the artists expanding studio and ambitious projects. Among collectors who later hosted large presentations of his work was Francois Pinault, whose Venetian venues presented Hirsts Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable in 2017.

Awards and Public Recognition
In 1995 Hirst won the Turner Prize, the United Kingdoms most visible contemporary art award, confirming his position at the forefront of British art. Media attention followed his every move, from confrontational gallery installations to public sculptures and installations in major museums. His works became touchstones in debates about public funding, taste, and the role of shock in contemporary art.

Market Innovations
Hirst regularly tested the boundaries between studio, gallery, and marketplace. In 2008 he orchestrated Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, an unprecedented auction at Sothebys in London that bypassed dealers and sold new works directly to collectors. The sale, which coincided with wider financial turmoil, became a landmark in the relationship between artists and the art market. His factory-scale studios and the participation of assistants in producing series such as the Spot Paintings were openly acknowledged, reviving long-standing debates about authorship that reach back to Andy Warhol and beyond.

Entrepreneurship and Curation
Beyond making art, Hirst has acted as a curator, restaurateur, and collector. His Notting Hill restaurant Pharmacy translated the aesthetics of his studio into a social space. As a collector, he built the Murderme collection, championing both peers and predecessors. In 2015 he opened Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, London, to display that collection free to the public; the buildings by Caruso St John won the RIBA Stirling Prize, and the program expanded Hirsts role as a cultural organizer. Collaborations with chefs and designers, as well as with galleries run by Jay Jopling and Larry Gagosian, reflect a career that moves fluidly between making, presenting, and circulating art.

Controversies and Debates
Hirsts use of animals and laboratory aesthetics provoked sustained criticism from animal-rights advocates and segments of the public, even as museums and collectors embraced the work. Questions of appropriation surrounded certain sculptures, and the commercial scale of his practice often overshadowed quieter conceptual concerns. He has responded by emphasizing art historys tradition of fabrication, repetition, and the power of display systems. Friends and peers such as Angus Fairhurst and Mat Collishaw shaped both his personal world and artistic dialogue, and their careers and struggles formed a backdrop to the ambitions and pressures of the YBA era.

Later Projects and Legacy
Hirst has remained active and visible into the 2010s and 2020s. Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable staged a pseudo-archaeological fantasy, testing the line between fiction and belief in contemporary spectacle culture, with Francois Pinaults spaces providing a grand setting. During the pandemic period he produced charitable editions supporting health workers and launched projects that explored the interface of digital and physical art, including a series that asked buyers to choose between keeping a paper painting or an NFT version. Continual presentations at White Cube and Gagosian ensured a global audience.

Hirsts influence extends beyond individual works to the systems that present and value art. He helped define the YBA generation alongside figures such as Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas, while the early backing of Charles Saatchi, the advocacy of Michael Craig-Martin, and the support of dealers like Jay Jopling and Larry Gagosian shaped his path. Whether celebrated as a visionary or criticized as a market provocateur, he transformed how contemporary art is produced, consumed, and debated in Britain and beyond, leaving an imprint on museums, galleries, and the public imagination that continues to be felt.

Our collection contains 21 quotes who is written by Damien, under the main topics: Love - Meaning of Life - Mother - Dark Humor - Live in the Moment.