Have a cow, Hirst tells Tate

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Thursday December 13, 2007
guardian.co.uk


A viewer stands between two vitrines that make up part of Damien Hirst's Mother and Child Divided. Photograph: David Sillitoe

Damien Hirst has made millions selling his art but, until now, has never donated works to a museum. Today the Tate announced it had been given four important pieces from the artist's personal collection - and more would be on the way.

Three years ago Hirst was one of 24 leading artists to pledge significant works as part of Tate's Building the Tate Collection campaign, and today's announcement represents the artist coming good on that promise.

The four works include one using techniques that became something of a trademark. Mother and Child Divided is made up of a cow and calf, each bisected and displayed in tanks of formaldehyde. The donated work is a copy made this year of his 1993 piece, which he displayed at the Turner prize in 1995.

Also on its way to the Tate is The Acquired Inability to Escape (1991), which Hirst displayed at his first ICA solo exhibition in London. It consists of a large glass display case containing, among other things, cigarettes, lighter, ashtray and stubs - for Hirst symbolic of luxury, danger and death.

Who is Afraid of the Dark (2002) is one of the first in Hirst's series of fly paintings, in which dead flies completely cover a canvas. The fourth work donated is Life Without You (1991), an arrangement of seashells laid evenly spaced on a desk.

Hirst said he had been in negotiations for a few years to make sure the Tate got the right works. He added: "It means a lot to me to have works in the Tate. I would never have thought it possible when I was a student. I think giving works from my collection is a small thing if it means millions of people get to see my work displayed in a great space."

The Tate, which like all national institutions struggles with a limited acquisitions budget despite a soaring art market, was as delighted to receive as Hirst was to give. Its director Nicholas Serota said: "This substantial gift from Damien Hirst will transform the representation of his work in Tate's collection. I am extremely grateful to Damien for his overwhelming generosity in making such a significant gift."

The Tate said Hirst's donations are the first phase of gifts from the artist. They join works already owned by the Tate including Hirst's Pharmacy (1992), which is a room-sized installation which, as the name suggests, is made up of medicine cabinets with packaged drugs behind glass.

Hirst is the most successful of the young British artists championed by collector Charles Saatchi in the early 1990s. Earlier this year his work For The Love of God, an astonishing diamond encrusted skull, was sold, it was claimed, to a business consortium for £50m.

Hirst was also, for a few months at least, the most expensive living artist at auction when one his pill cabinets, Lullaby Spring, sold for £9.6m at Sotheby's. He held the record until last month when Jeff Koons' The Hanging Heart (Magenta and Gold) sculpture sold for £11.3m.