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Even his fag ends sell as Hirst art auction hits £100 million
Godfrey Barker and Louise Jury16 Sep 2008
The auction of works by Damien Hirst stormed expectations today to soar through the £100 million mark.
A bid of £950,000 for a zebra in formaldehyde called 1965, The Incredible Journey, was well below estimate - but took the running total well past the highest expectation for the entire sale with at least another hour to go.
The sale of new paintings, sculptures and installations at Sotheby's overturned some critics' predictions that Hirst, 43, had flooded the market.
The series of three sales, which started last night and concluded today, are unprecedented - no other living artist has dared cut out the middlemen and go straight to auction.
Hirst played snooker at the Groucho Club in Soho last night as half a mile away there was a bidding frenzy for his great auction.
"He couldn't make up his mind whether to have spaghetti carbonara or spaghetti bolognese," said Frank Dunphy, his agent. "I told him that, given what has happened, he could afford to have both. After all, it's been a lot of hard work and a stressful time."
Hirst succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. After just 51 lots of the 223 lots had been sold, the £65 million target for the sale was passed. His big risk of bypassing his dealers Jay Jopling at White Cube, Harry Blain at Haunch of Venison and Larry Gagosian in King's Cross paid off as a new auction record price was paid for a Hirst - £10,345,250 for an enormous nine-ton Charolais bull in a blue tank of formaldehyde, The Golden Calf. A tiger shark with wide open jaws, The Kingdom, made £9,561,250.
Hirst's nightmare about what might happen to these new works ("Lot 9, no bids. Lot 10, still no bids," he confessed last week) were swept away on Lot 1, a spin painting glued with butterflies and manufactured diamonds with a £300,000-£500,000 estimate. It was exactly the sort of work that maddens Hirst's critics - designed and painted by assistants, untouched and not even signed by him, "vacuous" according to majestic Time Magazine critic Robert Hughes.
Auctioneer Oliver Barker had barely lifted his hand when he was besieged by waving arms across the saleroom. Bidding sprinted so fast to £993,250 that Mr Barker was gasping the prices out.
The 656 ticketed bidders trounced the estimates on 40 of the 56 lots, handing a heavy loss to hedge funds that foresaw disaster and shorted Sotheby's shares last week.
Unexpectedly, the steepest price climbs came not on Hirst's well-known spins and spots, his pretty coloured pills in neat lines, but on new stuff. In minutes today, the contents of an ashtray-Hirst had artfully deposited on linen went for a hammer price of £70,000 - more than three times the highest estimate.
A unicorn in a glass case went for more than £2 million and one of Hirst's butterfly works doubled its estimate to go for £1.4 million.
The financial fairyland in Sotheby's was in sharp contrast to the cruel world outside. As the Evening Standard headlined the Wall Street collapse of Lehman Brothers, money fell from heaven as investors saw greater safety in Hirst and the contemporary art market than in ordinary securities.
But Sotheby's CEO Bill Ruprecht, over from New York, said: "This sale wasn't about money getting out of Wall Street, it was about Damien Hirst. We've had 22,000 visitors in the last week, many of them families with children. The simple truth is that people around the world find his art compelling."
Before the sales, Hirst, the richest artist in British history - richer than Van Dyck, Sir Joshua Reynolds and JMW Turner - had already made more than £500 million.
He's 43, he's cut out the dealers who were taking 20 to 50 per cent on his sales and he's destined to get richer, faster. His market has expanded to buyers from India, China, Russia and the Middle East as well as from the US and UK.
Applause broke out last night when Fragments of Paradise, a giant case of manufactured diamonds, stormed up to £5.193 million. It went to a telephone bidder represented by Sotheby's best Russian speaker - the only hint as to the buyer's identity.
"I believe he [Hirst] doesn't mind money," said Mr Dunphy when asked if the £500 million was made by design or accident. "He can do very good things, like give it to charity, or pay his taxes, which is brilliant for the country."
Four charities will benefit from the sale. The Demelza Hospice Care for Children charity in south London will get more than £769,000 from one piece donated by Hirst, with nearly £900,000 going to the aid of Survival International for tribal peoples.
Hirst said: "I think the market is bigger than anyone knew. I love art and this proves I'm not alone. The future's great for everyone."
Reader views (7)
Fantastic, well done Damien. This is great news for British art and British creativity, with Hirst flying the flag for us. Nobody scoffed when Robbie Williams was paid £80m by EMI a few years ago, but we love to bash Contemporary art, as it's so easy to do so. Thankfully artists like Damien are completely immune to the jealousies and criticisms from the luddites.
- Joe, London, 16/09/2008 13:39
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Damien Hirst has achieved something no Art critc or chippy journalist could ever do in any number of articles or books. Brilliantly he has become the richest artist of all time in doing it. The gods of perfect timing were on his side. The irony of Lehman Brothers going bust on the same day is beyond fiction. The graph of his estimated financial worth rocketing as that of the 150 year old Bank crashes by 97% means that, had he the inclination he could probably make a serious takeover bid.
Hirst's great achievement is not in creating the most beautiful or even original Art of all time, interesting artistically though his product is, it is certainly not particularly ground-breaking or stunningly beautiful. He has, however, as no hack could ever do, with consummate brio and originality finally exposed the world of Contemporary Art for the faux-hip pompous Farago of Hype and Marketing we know in our hearts it to be.
Arise Sir Damien! Genius Artist. The King Midas of our times.
C.
- Frank Ormonde, London UK, 16/09/2008 13:16
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Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder! You can't blame Hirst, Emin etc for churning out this cr*p if people are willing to stump up for it. And you can't call Hirst a fraud, Dhanraj, as it's libelous. He just describes his products as what they are. If people are mug enough to decide it's fine art, that's their problem.
- Paul, London, 16/09/2008 12:46
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Anyone gullible enough to spend £8 million on a pickled shark deserves to be eaten by one.
- Squiz, Islington, 16/09/2008 12:43
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Having seen some of his exhibits on tv last evening,and to the enthusiastic reporters comments,the story 'The Emperors Clothes'came to mind.
- Colin, Bristol, 16/09/2008 11:38
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Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch?!
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland, 16/09/2008 11:34
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Its about time that Hirst is exposed for the fraud that he is. How can people be taken in by the likes of Hirst and Emin for the rubbish they are inflicting on the Art World.
- Dhanraj, basildon, essex, 16/09/2008 11:00
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