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Damien Hirst’s Reconciliation, 2018, is a hypnotic example of the artist’s most recent series of large-scale butterfly works. The wings of butterflies are set in meticulous, concentric circles, with a Hebomoia Glaucippe butterfly at the very center, functioning as a point of visual focus.i The round, uniform composition of the work has a soothing, even spiritual effect, reminiscent of the mandala, an intricate, stylized representation of the divinely-ordered cosmos common to Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Shinto religious traditions. The eye moves around Reconciliation like a penitent Catholic walks a prayer labyrinth, a concentric path for contemplation, found in the gardens of Catholic monasteries, or paved into the stones of cathedral floors.
“I was a Catholic until I was 12… I loved the imagery.”
—Damien HirstHirst’s deployment of Catholic references in his works strongly correlates with his use of butterflies as art materials. While his first solo exhibition, In and Out of Love, 1991, featured live butterflies, it wasn’t until the early 2000s, with his Kaleidoscope series (2001-present), that Hirst began using butterfly wings in earnest as a medium.ii In the mid-2000s, he executed a series of 150 concentric butterfly works, smaller in scale than Reconciliation, with each work taking its title from an entry in the Book of Psalms in the Bible. The Cathedrals series, begun c. 2007, draws a direct link to perhaps the strongest Catholic visual reference for Hirst’s butterflies: the stained-glass windows of Catholic cathedrals. Hirst recently brought this connection to its apex with a stained-glass skylight of butterflies for Claridge’s, London, in 2022.
Rose window, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris. Image: © Jean Feuillie / CMN Dist. Art Resource, NY In the Middle Ages, architects worked to incorporate increasingly large stained-glass windows into the walls of cathedrals; the rose window, a concentric masterpiece of stained glass, was one such innovation of design. Rose windows were meant to inspire awe in the medieval Christian worshipper; as believers prayed in the cathedral, the divine effect of sunlight shining through stained glass heightened the emotional impact of their devotional experiences. Reconciliation, which invokes the jewel tones of a rose window, such as those seen at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, is named for one of the Catholic sacraments that believers participate in at Church. The sacrament of Reconciliation, usually begun in childhood, is a ritual in which the believer confesses their sins to a priest, who forgives them, and gives them penance. Reconciliation is a foundational sacrament for Catholics, as God’s forgiveness saves them from Hell. Raised Catholic, Hirst would have been familiar with this sacrament, and maybe partaken in it himself.iii
Detail and installation view of Hirst’s butterfly stained glass skylight for Claridge’s, London, 2022. Artwork: © 2023 Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved/ DACS, London/Artists Rights Society, New York However, the integration of Reconciliation, a work ostensibly inspired by Catholic imagery, within the context of Hirst’s Mandalas exhibition at White Cube, London, 2019, named for the Eastern religious motif, suggests a widening of Hirst’s religious sources beyond his Christian childhood. The butterfly, a longtime symbol in Hirst’s work, takes on wider significance in Reconciliation and related canvases. The butterfly has symbolized the cycle of life and death in a variety of cultures—from the Ancient Greeks and medieval Irish, who saw butterflies as the fluttering souls of the departed, to contemporary associations of butterflies with the fragility of life.iv Even in the secular world of science, the butterfly is an indicator of shifting life cycles; butterfly populations and migration patterns can help us measure the effects of climate change.v In the Catholic context of Hirst’s childhood, and wider world religions represented in Mandalas, Hirst’s butterfly works trade in an expanded dialogue on the transience of life and stillness of death, present throughout the artist’s oeuvre at large.
i “Overview: Damien Hirst, Mandalas,” White Cube, 2019, online.
ii Ibid.
iii Jonathan Jones, “Damien Hirst: ‘I was a Catholic until I was 12. I loved the imagery—the blood,’” The Irish Times, Feb. 25, 2021, online.
iv Rod Mengham, “Butterfly Affect,” in Damien Hirst: Mandalas, White Cube, London, 2019, p. 4; Patrick Barkham, “Damien Hirst’s butterflies: distressing but weirdly uplifting,” The Guardian, Apr. 18, 2012, online.
v Tara Cornelisse, “Study: Climate Change Contributing to Widespread Butterfly Decline Across Western United States,” Center for Biological Diversity, Mar. 4, 2021, online.
Provenance
White Cube, London
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
London, White Cube, Damien Hirst: Mandalas, September 20–November 2, 2019, pp. 137, 185 (illustrated, pp. 139, 188; detail illustrated, pp. 140-141, 143)
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.
19
Reconciliation
signed, stamped with the artist’s stamp, titled and dated "2018 Damien Hirst 'Reconciliation'" on the reverse
butterflies and household gloss on canvas
diameter 72 in. (182.9 cm)
Executed in 2018.
This work is accompanied by a letter issued by the artist’s studio, Science, UK indicating that in their opinion it does not contain endangered species according to the species database published by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Estimate
$700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $927,100
Carolyn Mayer
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CMayer@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 May 2023
1
Noah Davis
Untitled
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $990,600
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2
Caroline Walker
Conservation
Estimate $150,000 - 350,000
Sold for $469,900
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3
Julien Nguyen
Jeu de Paume
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $127,000
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4
Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme au chignon
Estimate $6,000,000 - 9,000,000
Sold for $7,320,000
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5
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6
Louise Bonnet
The Red Pants
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $406,400
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7
Yayoi Kusama
Red Stripes
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,722,000
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8
Yayoi Kusama
Blue Spots
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,206,000
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9
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Untitled (after Ernst Thelott)
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $635,000
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10
Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,633,000
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11
Ed Ruscha
Dixie Red Seville
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
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12
Yoshitomo Nara
Guitar Girl
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
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13
Banksy
Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,724,500
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14
Henry Taylor
Dakar, Senegal #3
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $584,200
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15
Robert Colescott
A Death of an Old Mulatta
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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16
Rashid Johnson
Untitled Escape Collage
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $990,600
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17
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18
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #7
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $2,843,000
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19
Damien Hirst
Reconciliation
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $927,100
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20
Robert Ryman
Mark
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $3,811,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Chocolate Merangue
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,238,000
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22
Anna Weyant
Unconditional Love
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $609,600
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23
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24
María Berrío
No One Can Hear You, Only the Wind
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $635,000
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25
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,295,000
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26
Wayne Thiebaud
Levee and Cow
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,085,000
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27
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,117,600
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28
Andy Warhol
Mona Lisa Four Times
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,359,000
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29
Ed Ruscha
Manual Mobility
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $3,448,000
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30
Jadé Fadojutimi
The Menstrual Marshland
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $533,400
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31
Helen Frankenthaler
On the Road
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,875,000
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32
Robert Rauschenberg
Bath
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $444,500
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33
This lot is no longer available.
34
Sanya Kantarovsky
Deprivation
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $266,700
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35
Roy Lichtenstein
Girl in Mirror
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,505,000
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36
Issy Wood
Untitled (Harley's foot thing)
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
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37
Simone Leigh
Figure (Cobalt)
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $825,500
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38
Joan Miró
L’Espace
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $381,000
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39
Joan Miró
Femme et oiseau
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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40
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (March 5th) #2
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $635,000
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41
Sturtevant
Study for Warhol Marilyn
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,419,500
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