Damien Hirst

Who they are

Damien Hirst is a British artist born in 1965 in Bristol, England. He studied at Goldsmiths College in London and became a central figure among the loose group of artists later known as the Young British Artists, who first drew wide attention through Freeze, an exhibition Hirst organised in a former dockside building in London in 1988. He won the Turner Prize in 1995 and became known for large scale installations using preserved animals, for works built around pharmaceutical and medical imagery, and for pieces made with spots, spin techniques and butterflies. His practice has been surveyed in a full retrospective at Tate Modern in London in 2012, in the exhibition Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice in 2017, and in Cherry Blossoms, his first museum exhibition in France, at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris in 2021.

Disciplines and how they differ in the saleroom

Hirst works across several disciplines that behave differently once they reach auction. His unique paintings and sculptures, including large scale gloss paintings on canvas and vitrine works, are handled as one of a kind objects and are typically placed in evening and day sales of modern and contemporary art. His prints and multiples, published by houses such as Other Criteria, Paragon Press and Eyestorm, are issued in signed and numbered editions that can run from a few dozen to several hundred impressions, and they circulate through dedicated prints and multiples sales rather than the evening sales that carry his unique works. LLB Auction's own sales of the artist sit within this editions and multiples market, which is how most collectors encounter his work. Because the two markets are catalogued and priced differently, knowing which category a given piece belongs to matters before comparing it with anything else that has come to auction.

What a specialist examines

Before a Hirst work is catalogued for sale, a specialist looks first at the signature and its placement, since his prints are typically signed and numbered by hand on the front or the reverse, with the edition number recorded alongside the publisher name. Medium and support matter as much as image, because a screenprint, a woodcut, a lambda inkjet print and a household gloss painting on canvas are catalogued and priced differently even when the imagery is related. Provenance is checked against the publisher who issued the work, whether Other Criteria, Paragon Press or Eyestorm, since publisher records are central to confirming an edition. Exhibition history and any earlier appearance at a documented sale are noted when they exist, and condition is assessed for the particular medium, checking for fading or handling marks on paper and for surface condition on canvas. Questions about authorship and dating are treated with care given the studio practices documented under Career, and a specialist relies on publisher and studio paperwork rather than a single document.

Market position

Hirst has a documented public auction market across multiple houses. At Phillips in London, a household gloss painting titled Calcium Hydroxide sold for £412,800 in 2025. At Bonhams, a lenticular print related to For the Love of God sold for £7,680 in 2025, a lambda inkjet print titled Valium sold for $17,920 in 2023, a woodcut titled L-Isoleucine T-Butyl Ester sold for $35,075 in 2020, an inkjet print titled Gold Tears sold for $8,200 in 2019, a lambda inkjet print titled Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) sold for £10,000 in 2017, and a screenprint titled Histidyl sold for $8,750 in 2014. Across a full decade, these results show a print and multiples market that trades steadily from a few thousand up to the tens of thousands of dollars or pounds, with unique paintings reaching a distinctly higher tier, as shown by the Phillips result above.

Preparing a valuation request

A seller preparing to consign a Hirst work should gather the original invoice or any document showing when and where the piece was acquired, since this supports the provenance chain a specialist will want to see. Clear photographs of the front, the signature, the edition number and the reverse of the work help a house confirm publisher and edition details quickly. Exact medium, dimensions and any publisher or edition information printed on the work itself should be recorded, along with a current condition report noting fading, restoration or handling wear appropriate to the material. Where a work has appeared in an exhibition or publication, keeping that documentation together with the piece strengthens the file a specialist will build before it is offered, whether the work in question is a unique painting or one impression from a numbered edition.