Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist
Private Collection, Transylvania
Christie’s London, ‘Sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art’, 5 February 2004, lot 217
Acquired from the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
New York, Gagosian Gallery, The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011, 12 January–18 February 2012
Catalogue Essay
From curating the exhibition Freeze in 1988 and establishing the solo auction of his own work Beautiful Inside My Head Forever in 2008, all the way to his major Tate Modern retrospective in 2012, Damien Hirst has become one of the most influential artists of his generation. Hirst’s talent for being an entrepreneur is undoubtedly a large part of his success. Like many of the artists that today are associated with the YBAs (Young Brutish Artists), Hirst started out his highly successful career as a graduate of Goldsmiths College in London in the late 1980s.

During Hirst’s second year at Goldsmiths, he assembled his first Medicine Cabinet Sinner (1988). The cabinet marked a time when Hirst wanted to paint but was unable to produce anything decent. “… in painting I’d get lost: I had no formal devices to help me out. One problem I always had was colour” (Damien Hirst, exh. cat., London, Tate, 2012, p. 93). Hirst began to compose the cabinets in a painterly manner by selecting the medicine boxes for their colour and size. The advantage of the cabinet shelves was that they imposed a structure to the artwork that gave Hirst the necessary formal tool.

It was only shortly after the first Medicine Cabinet that Hirst painted the first of what must be one of the most widely recognized works in contemporary art today – his Spot Paintings. The set layout of the spots followed exactly the same notion of structure as the Cabinets; however, now Hirst could not hide the fact that he was arranging colour anymore. He committed fully to paintings in the way that it now was all about colour and composition. As Hirst has said about the Spot Paintings, “I just wanted things that were irresistible, things that you couldn’t ignore, things that you couldn’t avoid and you couldn’t challenge” (Damien Hirst, 2012, p. 92). Indeed, Hirst had created something utterly provocative and unavoidable with his vibrant Spots.

“Yeah, the first [Spot Painting] on canvas absolutely changed my world. I’d looked at this stuff, like Conceptual art, but it was the first time I had clarity in some way. The thing that was causing me problems in painting was colour, finding a structure where I could lay it down, be in control of it rather than it controlling me. Once I’d done that, I didn’t really have problems with colour anymore.” (Damien Hirst, 2012, p. 91) At the time of the first Spot Paintings, Hirst was looking at Minimalism. He was intrigued by these minimal forms because they also were unavoidable and at the same time deeply irresistible. “I was totally into Minimalism probably before I was into Conceptual art – Donald Judd and Sol Lewitt and all those guys. I loved Minimalism because it was everything I wasn’t as a human being …” (Damien Hirst, 2012, p. 93). But soon he became bored and then even frustrated by the meaningless of Minimalism; Damien’s response were the Spot Paintings.

In early 2012, Hirst exhibited over 300 Spot Paintings at once across all of Gagosian Gallery’s eleven locations worldwide. Spanning 25 years, The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011 fulfilled the artist’s long-standing dream to show all the Spots simultaneously.
Artist Biography
Damien Hirst
British • 1965
There is no other contemporary artist as maverick to the art market as Damien Hirst. Foremost among the Young British Artists (YBAs), a group of provocative artists who graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in the late 1980s, Hirst ascended to stardom by making objects that shocked and appalled, and that possessed conceptual depth in both profound and prankish ways.
Regarded as Britain's most notorious living artist, Hirst has studded human skulls in diamonds and submerged sharks, sheep and other dead animals in custom vitrines of formaldehyde. In tandem with Cheyenne Westphal, now Chairman of Phillips, Hirst controversially staged an entire exhibition directly for auction with 2008's "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever," which collectively totalled £111 million ($198 million).
Hirst remains genre-defying and creates everything from sculpture, prints, works on paper and paintings to installation and objects. Another of his most celebrated series, the 'Pill Cabinets' present rows of intricate pills, cast individually in metal, plaster and resin, in sterilized glass and steel containers; Phillips New York showed the largest of these pieces ever exhibited in the United States, The Void, 2000, in May 2017.
View More Works

Ο20

Damien Hirst

Untitled 2 (Spot Painting)

1992
household gloss on canvas
91.4 x 91.4 cm (35 7/8 x 35 7/8 in)
Signed ‘Damien Hirst’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£300,000 - 500,000 ‡♠

Sold for £295,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

14 February 2013
London

1
Nate Lowman
Green Escalade
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £337,250
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2
Rob Pruitt
Power of the Panda (Happy Alone)
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 †
Sold for £115,250
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3
Dan Colen
A Slip of the Tongue
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £133,250
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4
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Black and Canary Yellow Butterfly) #699
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £457,250
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5
Rashid Johnson
Write me In
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £85,250
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6
Donald Judd
Untitled (91-149 Menziken)
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000
Sold for £337,250
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7
Christopher Wool
Untitled (P271)
Estimate £1,300,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £1,665,250
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8
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Look and listen)
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £253,250
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9
Andy Warhol
Brillo Soap Pads Box
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
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10
Andy Warhol
Tomato Juice Box
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £223,250
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11
Andy Warhol
Hammer and Sickle
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £247,250
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12
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate £1,800,000 - 2,500,000 ‡
Sold for £1,945,250
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13
Andy Warhol
Beatle Boots (Negative)
Estimate £550,000 - 650,000 ‡
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
For B.A.M.
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £763,830
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15
Banksy
Bomb Middle England
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £229,250
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16
Jonathan Wateridge
Jungle River Landscape with Plane Wreck
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £109,250
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17
Albert Oehlen
Student II
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡♠
Sold for £169,250
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18
Jean Dubuffet
Le Chien Rodeur
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £325,250
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19
Cecily Brown
East of Eden
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £724,450
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20
Damien Hirst
Untitled 2 (Spot Painting)
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £295,250
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21
Marc Quinn
Frozen Head
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £713,250
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22
This lot is no longer available.
23
Rosemarie Trockel
Waterfall
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ♠
Sold for £361,250
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24
Richard Prince
What Can You Do?
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡
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25
Elizabeth Peyton
Dr. Scarpinato (Vincent)
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
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26
George Condo
Untitled (Choo Choo)
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡
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27
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #469
Estimate £180,000 - 220,000 ‡
Sold for £205,250
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28
The Bruce High Quality Foundation
Las Meninas
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £181,250
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29
Thomas Houseago
Caryatide with Squatting Man
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠†
Sold for £73,250
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30
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡♠
Sold for £79,250
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31
Ryan Sullivan
July 24, 2011 - September 28, 2011
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000
Sold for £91,250
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32
Mark Tansey
Study for the Valley of Doubt
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
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33
Yan Pei-Ming
Invisible Man no. 1
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £163,250
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34
Isa Genzken
Empire/Vampire
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
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35
Sterling Ruby
Monument Stalagmite/Headbanger
Estimate £70,000 - 100,000 †
Sold for £85,250
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36
Marc Quinn
Careless Desire
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £157,250
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

14 February 2013 London

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Provenance

Exhibited

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Damien Hirst

Ο20

Damien Hirst

Untitled 2 (Spot Painting)

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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14 February 2013
London