Damien Hirst: A Biography

This book is part of Hyperink's best little books series. This best little book is 3,400+ words of fast, entertaining information on a highly demanded topic. Based on reader feedback (including yours!), we may expand this book in the future. If we do so, we'll send a free copy to all previous buyers.

ABOUT THE BOOK

You either love his art, or hate it. Damien Hirst is one of those contemporary artists whose works of art, personality, and public statements create a great amount of controversy. Despite the controversy (and perhaps because of it), Hirst is one of Britain’s most famous contemporary artists. He is regarded as one of the leading members of the Young British Artists, a term used by the art world to identify a loose group of British visual artists who exhibited together and created a splash in the art scene in the 1980s to 1990s.

Hirst is also one of Britain’s most commercially successful artists. With a fortune of around £215 million, a starving artist he is most certainly not. What kind of art does he turn out to be so in demand with art collectors around the world?

Many of his most famous works revolve around the theme of death. They include a tiger shark suspended and preserved in formaldehyde inside a glass display case (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991), a life-sized recreation of a pharmacy (Pharmacy, 1992), a platinum human skull covered in 8,601 diamonds (For the Love of God, 2007), and a bull in formaldehyde, whose hooves and horns were cast in 18-carat gold (The Golden Calf, 2008).

MEET THE AUTHOR

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Karen Lac has been writing since 1999. Her articles have appeared in print in “The Occidental Weekly.” Her writing reflects her broad interests. She writes travel, entertainment, political commentary, health, nutrition, food, education, career, and legal articles for numerous websites. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and a Bachelor of Arts in politics, both from Occidental College.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

She accompanied him to slaughterhouses and maggot farms for his art. “I was pretty much head over heels in love, so I leapt at any chance to spend time with Damien. We are well suited in that we share morbid curiosities,” Norman told Wmagazine.com in 2009.

While Hirst’s star was on the rise when they met, he was still struggling to make his name in the art world. He slept on a mattress on the floor of a rented room in public housing. When they first lived together, Norman would get their furniture from the trash and clip coupons. Over the years, as Hirst’s became famous, Norman accompanied him to the many fashionable parties that he frequented.

They now have two have three sons together: Connor, 16, Cassius, 11, and Cyrus, six. Hirst and Norman, whom he calls his common-law wife, never married. The family has lived in a large farm estate on the north Devon coast since moving back to Britain from Germany in 1996. Norman is now a successful businesswoman in her own right, with a successful ready-to-wear label and collection, Mother of Pearl…

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