Monday, 16 July 2007
Damien Hirst has become Britain's highest earning living artist after sales from his recent exhibition reached £130m.
But the centrepiece of his show at the White Cube gallery - a diamond-encrusted skull - may be sold to a private international collector.
If this happens, the artwork could be taken out of the country and Hirst's desire to see it displayed for longer in a gallery or museum may never be fulfilled.
Sales from the exhibition at the London gallery, which closed earlier this month, included a £10m work entitled Death Explained, consisting of a shark split in two.
If the skull is sold for its asking price, the total sales from the exhibition are likely to double his £135m personal fortune, even after paying a 25 per cent commission to the gallery.
There has been much speculation about whether the work, For the Love of God, which is priced at £50m, will be taken out of the country. The human skull, encrusted with more than 8,000 diamonds, has attracted the interest of collectors in the Middle Eastern, Russia and America.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Tim Marlow, exhibitions director at the White Cube, said attempts were being made to find a buyer who would have it on public view for at least some period of time.
"We are trying to negotiate a deal with a museum or several museums so whoever buys the jewelled skull puts it on public display, or at least initially, rather than simply keeping it at home or in a vault away from the public gaze," he said.
But sources within the industry fear it may be sold to an individual collector rather than a gallery.
Charles Saatchi, one of Britain's biggest collectors of contemporary art, championed Hirst's work when it first emerged on the market in the 1990s. But he is not believed to be in the bidding for the skull.
In the past decade, Hirst has risen to one of the leading lights of the art world, and has come to distinguish himself from the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s. Last month, Sotheby's announced that a sale of Hirst's work had made him the most expensive living artist at auction. A pill cabinet, entitled Lullaby Spring sold for £9.6m.
His wealth is not only made up from the sales of artworks that can court record-breaking prices, but also from a highly valuable personal collection of works by the likes of Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons and Richard Prince.
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