Damien Hirst is one of the richest artists in life.

There is an opinion that the artist can be either extremely rich or extremely poor. This can be applied to the person that will be covered in this article. His name is Damien Hirst, and he is one of the richest living artists. If you believe the Sunday Times, they estimated that this artist was the richest in the world in 2010, and his fortune was estimated at 215 million pounds.

Creativity by Damien Hirst

In contemporary art, this person takes the role of "face of death." This is partly due to the fact that he uses materials that are not used to creating works of art. Among them is worth noting pictures of dead insects, parts of dead animals in formaldehyde, skull with real teeth, etc.

His work causes people to simultaneously shock, disgust and delight. For this, collectors from all over the world are ready to give huge money.

Damien Hirst biography

The artist was born in 1965 in a city called Bristol. His father was a mechanic and left the family when his son was at the age of 12. Damian's mother worked in a consulting office and was an amateur artist.

The future "face of death" in contemporary art led an antisocial way of life. He was arrested twice for theft in shops. But despite this, the young creator studied at the art school in Leeds, and then went to London College under the name Goldsmith College.

This institution was to some extent innovative. The difference from the others was that the other schools simply accepted students who did not have the skills to enroll in a real college, and the Goldsmith College collected a lot of talented students and teachers. They had their own program, for which it was not necessary to be able to draw. Recently, this form of training has only gained popularity.

In his student years, he liked to visit the morgue and make sketches there. This place and laid the foundation for his future themes of works.

From 1990 to 2000, Damien Hirst had problems with drugs and alcohol. During this time he managed to make many different tricks while in a state of intoxication.

Career ladder of the artist

Hirst was interested in the public for the first time at an exhibition called "Freeze", which was held in 1988. At this exhibition, the work of this artist drew the attention of Charles Saatchi. This man was a famous tycoon, but in addition, he was an avid lover of art and collected it. The collector bought two works by Hirst during the year. After this, Saatchi often acquired works of art from Damien. You can count about 50 works that were bought by this person.

Already in 1991, the above-mentioned artist decided to hold his own exhibition, which was called In and Out of Love. On this he did not stop and held several more exhibitions, one of which was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

In the same year, his most famous work was performed, it was called "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living." Created it was at the expense of Saatchi. The work that Damien Hirst performed, her photo is a little lower, was a container with a large tiger shark, which is immersed in formaldehyde.

In the photo it may seem that the shark is quite small, but in fact it was 4.3 meters.

Scandals

In 1994, at an exhibition supervised by Demien Hurst, there was a scandal with the artist named Mark Bridger. This incident happened because of one of the works, called "Fought off the herd", which is a sheep, immersed in formaldehyde. Mark came to the exhibition where the work of art was shown and in one movement poured a can of ink into the container and proclaimed the new name of this work - "Black sheep". Damien Hirst sued him for an act of vandalism. At the trial, Mark tried to explain to the jury that he simply wanted to supplement Hirst's work, but the court did not understand and pleaded guilty. He could not pay the fine, since he was in a poor state at that time, so he was given only 2 years of a suspended sentence. After a while he created his own "Black sheep".

Merit of Damien

In 1995, there was a significant date in the life of the artist - he was nominated for the Turner Prize. The work under the name "separated mother and child" served as the winner of this award was Damien Hirst. The artist combined in this work 2 containers. In one of them was a cow in formaldehyde, and in the second a calf.

The last "loud" work

The most recent work, which made noise, is the "Diamond Skull", for which Damien Hirst has spent a lot of money. The work, the photo of which already shows all its high cost, had not yet had Damien Hirst.

The name of this installation is "For the love of God." It is a human skull, which is covered with diamonds. This creation consumed 8,601 diamonds. The total size of the stones is 1100 carats. This sculpture is the most expensive of all the artist's works. Its price is 50 million pounds sterling. After that, he cast a new skull. This time it was the skull of an infant, which was called "For God's sake." Platinum and diamonds were used as the material.

In 2009, after Damian Hurst held his exhibition "Requiem", which caused a violent wave of dissatisfaction with critics, he announced that he had tied up with the installations and would continue to practice normal painting again.

Outlook on life

Based on the interview, the artist calls himself punk. He says that he is afraid of death, for the real death is truly terrible. From his words, it is not death that sells well, but only the fear of death. His views on religion are skeptical.