Damien Hirst

A British conceptual artist whose deliberately provocative work addresses vanitas and beauty, death and rebirth, and the relationship between medicine, technology and mortality, Damien Hirst is one of the most recognisable names in contemporary art. Born in Bristol and raised in Leeds, his work first caught the eye of collector Charles Saatchi while he was still a student at Goldsmiths College in London.

In 1988, while still a student, he curated the now renowned exhibition Freeze in East London, bringing together a group of young artists who would go on to define cutting-edge contemporary art in the 1990s and become known as the Young British Artists. His mixed media sculptures draw from a frequently controversial assortment of formaldehyde suspended carcasses, cigarette butts, pharmaceutical packaging and surgical instruments, often encased in glass vitrines.

He won the Turner Prize in 1995 and has since become the United Kingdom's wealthiest artist. In 2008 he made an unprecedented move by selling a complete show directly at Sotheby's, raising £111 million and bypassing his long-standing galleries entirely. From spot paintings to diamond encrusted skulls, his work continues to provoke, enthral and divide opinion in equal measure.

Photograph by Andrew Russeth via Wikimedia Commons