Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst, born in 1965 in the United Kingdom, was a prominent member of the "Young British Artists" (YBAs) during the 1990s, a period during which he dominated the British art scene and achieved international fame. Early in his career, he was significantly supported by the collector Charles Saatchi, whose marketing strategies propelled his rapid rise. However, their relationship ended in 2003 due to disagreements. In 2003, the Sunday Times valued his fortune at about $364 million.

Death is the central theme of his work, often involved in controversies and intense debates. An example is when New York authorities banned the exhibition of "dead couple fucking twice," which showed the corpses of a bull and a cow preserved in formaldehyde. This piece is part of his most famous series, "Natural History," which includes dead animals preserved in formaldehyde tanks. Hirst is also known for his "spin paintings," made on spinning surfaces, and "spot paintings," which are randomly colored circles.

His most iconic and controversial work, "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," which features a huge tiger shark in a formaldehyde tank, was sold in 2004 as the second most expensive work by a living artist, after Jasper Johns, for about ten million dollars. Due to decomposition, the shark was replaced in 2006. In August 2007, his work "For the Love of God," a skull encrusted with over eight thousand diamonds, was sold for $100 million, the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist.

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