Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst (Damien Steven Hirst) is an English artist who is the most prominent member of the group Young British Artist, who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990’s. Hirt’s wealth is valued at  around £215m, making him the UK’s richest living artist, and he is internationally renowned. In September 2008 he sold a complete show at a Sotheby’s auction, earning £111 million and breaking the record for the profits made from a one-artist auction. Death is a central theme in Hirst’s work, gaining fame from a series of works that encased dead animals in formaldehyde. The most famous of these works is a 14ft tiger shark suspended in clear cased filled with formaldehyde.

Hirst began his career in 1991 when Charles Saatchi offered to fun whatever art work he wanted to create. Although that started his prolific career, there is much controversy around Hirst’s work. His creation style and the volume of pieces created necessitates Hirst to have a factory-like set up, much of the actual work to create his pieces being done by many assistants. This has led many to question the authenticity of the work, but Hirst see the conception the real creative act. On top of authenticity claims, Hirst has been plagued with several plagiarism allegations over the course of his long career.  Throughout his career at least five cases of plagerisim have been brought against him, all settled outside of court.