Damien Hirst: 7 Essential Facts You Need to Know

For the Love of God and the £12 Million Skull Production

Commissioned and presented by Damien Hirst, the sculpture For the Love of God cost £12 million to produce, according to Sculptor Magazine. The piece consists of an 18th-century human skull cast in platinum and encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, featuring an original set of teeth and a pear-shaped pink diamond center known as the Skull Star Diamond. Hirst derived the title from his mother’s frequent childhood question: “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”

While Hirst conceived the project and sourced the original human skull, he did not construct the physical object himself. Instead, he commissioned London jewelers Bentley and Skinner to fabricate the sculpture. Originally listed with a price tag of £50 million, the artwork ultimately proved too expensive for immediate buyers and remains kept in storage, according to Hirst’s admissions.

Bypassing Galleries: The 2008 Auction House Sale

In September 2008, Damien Hirst broke traditional art market protocol by bypassing commercial galleries entirely to sell an entire collection of new works directly through auction houses in London. Titled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, the single-artist sale netted $198 million in total revenue, setting a record ten times higher than any previous single-artist auction at auction houses, as reported by Sotheby’s.

Frank Dunphy managed Hirst’s business affairs during these major financial maneuvers. However, subsequent sales failed to match the staggering totals of the 2008 auction.

Facing 16 Public Plagiarism Claims and Conceptual Debt

Throughout his career, Hirst has faced 16 public plagiarism claims, alongside rumors of numerous out-of-court settlements, according to art industry reports.

Additional controversies involve early mentor John LeKay, who introduced Hirst to motifs involving taxidermy animals, butterflies, and medical references. Art historian and critic reviews note parallels between Hirst’s pill cabinet installations and Joseph Cornell’s earlier pharmacy display cases created nearly 50 years prior.

The Workshop Model: Producing Thousands of Spot Paintings

Damien Hirst has produced over 2,000 spot and dot paintings since 1988, yet he reportedly painted only five of them with his own hands, according to profiles in The New Yorker. Operating primarily through a large studio workshop, Hirst relies heavily on assistants to execute physical creations. Hirst has openly defended this approach, stating, “I don’t think the hand of the artist is important on any level because you’re trying to communicate an idea.”

This industrial approach to fine art has drawn criticism from traditional craftsmen. Legendary artist David Hockney publicly remarked that the delegation of painting to assistants is “a little insulting to craftsmen, skillful craftsmen,” highlighting a deep ideological divide between traditional studio practices and conceptual mass production.

Decay and formaldehyde: The Maintenance of Dead Animals

Death and taxidermy form the physical core of many Hirst installations. His early works utilized thousands of dead creatures, including 36 mammals, 685 fish and marine animals, and over 912,000 insects and butterflies, according to studio data cited by Artnet.

Preservation has proven difficult for his formaldehyde series. The original tiger shark purchased from Australian shark hunter Vic Hislop rotted over time and required replacement. In 2024, a replacement shark was barred from a Paris museum exhibition due to advanced flesh deterioration. Furthermore, an investigation by The Guardian revealed that several of Hirst’s formaldehyde sculptures were officially dated to the 1990s despite being physically executed in 2017—a practice Hirst defended by asserting that the dates reflect the “date of conception” rather than the date of physical assembly.

Frequently Asked Questions