Damien Hirst Limited Edition

Crucially, to discuss Damien Hirst Original and even Hirst limited edition, work at all, immediately involves consideration of the nature and function of Art itself in 2010. Because Hirst, although he acknowledges the debt he owes to Frances Bacon, reflections upon Death, rot and humanity forming a great part of his Oeuvre, is also the artistic inheritor of Andy Warhol’s magnificent manipulation of Art, Art as industry, as a factory producing items for consumption, images, music, ideas. And of his redefinition of Artist as progenitor, as originator, but not maker of work.

The definition of authenticity when linked to the terms Limited Edition Print and Original are even called into question when it is Hirst Limited Edition Prints and Hirst Originals that we are discussing.

It is entirely possible in fact that a Hirst Limited Edition print, such as ‘Doxylamine’ currently available to buy at myartbroker.co.uk for £9995.00, is a reproduction, in this case an Etching in an edition of 75, of a Hirst Original painting that Hirst himself only saw after it had been completed by one of his assistants.

This method of production isn’t at all problematic when it comes to the value of Damien Hirst Limited Edition prints, in fact it is such a fundamental element of his practise that no one now expects Damien Hirst to have touched most of his work, other than to add his signature.