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Hirst Is Most Expensive Living Artist
June 22, 2007 - 2:11pm
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER Associated Press Writer found at wtopnews.com
LONDON (AP) - A stainless steel cabinet containing 6,136 handcrafted and
painted pills has set a record for the highest price paid at auction for a
work by living artist, an auctioneer said.
Damien Hirst's "Lullaby Spring" sold Thursday for $19.1 million,
Sotheby's, the auction house, said in a statement. The sale propelled Hirst
past previous best seller Jasper Johns, whose "Figure 4" netted
about $17 million last month in New York.
British
artist Damien Hirst poses with 'For the love of God', a life size cast of a
human skull in platinum in this undated handout image released in London June
1, 2007. The Skull is covered by 8,601 pave-set diamonds weighing 1,106.18
carats.
A leading member of the so-called Young British Artists, a group that
dominated the British art scene in the 1990s, Hirst is best known for his work
involving slicing up and pickling animals and fish in formaldehyde.
His works have consistently attracted controversy _ and huge sums of cash.
One, a 14-foot tiger shark immersed in an aquarium filled with
formaldehyde, was among a collection of British works that attracted the ire
of then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani when it was displayed at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999. Giuliani tried, unsuccessfully, to cut funding
for the museum over its inclusion of a painting of the Virgin Mary on a canvas
spattered with elephant dung.
But the publicity didn't hurt Hirst, whose shark was later snapped up by an
American collector for $8 million.
Damien Hirst "For the love of God" Diamond Skull
'For the love of God', a life size cast of a human skull in platinum by artist
Damien Hirst is seen in this handout image released in London June 1, 2007.
The Skull is covered by 8,601 pave-set diamonds weighing 1,106.18 carats.
Earlier this month, the artist unveiled a platinum cast of a human skull
encrusted with over 8,000 diamonds at the opening of his latest exhibition at
London's two White Cube galleries. The glittering skull was valued at about
$24 million.
(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)