Hirst's Christmas present to Tate - a pickled cow

The works are the first major gift by the 42-year-old artist to a museum and follow several years of talks with the gallery.

Along with other leading British artists, Hirst pledged three years ago to give a significant piece or pieces to the Tate as part of its drive to augment its contemporary holdings.

But the donation of four works from his personal collection - with the promise of more to come - is one of the most generous and high-profile to date.

It includes Mother and Child Divided, a bisected cow and calf preserved in glass tanks. The original was created in 1993 and shown for the Turner Prize two years later. It is now owned by the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo.

What Hirst has donated is a copy specially prepared for exhibition in the Turner Prize retrospective which is on show at Tate Britain until 6 January.

The other gifts include a "painting" comprising dead black flies dating from 2002 and a glass cabinet of items suggesting a smoker called The Acquired Inability to Escape.

This dates from 1991, only three years after the famous Freeze exhibition which Hirst curated while at Goldsmiths art college and which is regarded as the defining show of his generation of Young British Artists or YBAs.

The gifts are a massive boost to the Tate's holdings of an artist whom the collector Charles Saatchi has named as the one contemporary Brit who will be remembered in a century's time.

Until now, the Tate's Hirst holdings included the installation Pharmacy, a chemist's shop of pill bottles and drugs created in 1992, and a number of prints.

Nicholas Serota, the Tate's director, admitted the substantial gift announced today would transform the representation of Hirst's work in the gallery's collection. "I am extremely grateful to Damien for his overwhelming generosity in making such a significant gift to Tate and for working closely with us to ensure we have an important range of his work," Sir Nicholas said.

"With such a limited budget for acquisitions, and when art market prices are high, Tate is indebted to international contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst for working with us on building the collection."

Damien Hirst said: "It means a lot to me to have works in the Tate. I would have never thought it possible when I was a student.