10 Facts About Damien Hirst's Fruitful And Forever

The prints show close up details of the densely layered and colourful dabs of paint from sections of the large-scale canvases from his series The Virtues. By magnifying a work that has become ubiquitous with his career, Hirst provides a new interpretation and point of view to the works.

The series was made by Hirst, working alongside Fondazione Prada, to support Save the Children Italy. The entirety of the profits from this series were donated to their campaign “Riscriviamo il Futuro”, which was launched to support Italian children from disadvantaged backgrounds who were affected by the school closures during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hirst stated they eventually raised €3.3 million for the campaign through the profits of Fruitful And Forever.

The signed prints are done with laminated giclée print on aluminium composite panel. The smaller edition is 39cm by 39cm, while the larger edition is 78cm by 78cm.

Launched on September 15th 2020, Fruitful And Forever was only available on the primary market until midnight on September 27th of the same year. As with many of Hirst's editions, the print run size is determined by the amount of interest generated during this short window of time.

According to Hirst himself, over the course of those days they "sold 2,908 Fruitful small, 1,528 Fruitful large, 2,173 Forever small and 1,049 Forever large." This was helped by the reasonably affordable price Hirst set for these works.

Hirst's iconic Cherry Blossoms were inspired by the works of Pierre Bonnard, the ephemerality of Claude Monet, the vivid colours of Vincent Van Gogh and the pointillist innovations of Georges Seurat.

Fruitful And Forever represents an abstraction of this tradition, further cementing Hirst's place as an artist who is capable of constant reinvention.

He stated: "The pandemic has given me a lot more time to live with the paintings, and look at them, and make absolutely certain that everything’s finished." This closer attention to detail is eagerly manifested in this series, where the viewer is encouraged to pay attention to the tactile nature of Hirst's cherry blossom paintings.

At a time of many were struggling with isolation and anxiety, Hirst purposefully chose to highlight a spring-hued palette in this series. On his Instagram, he described the works' colour as "hopeful".

That same year, Hirst created his Rainbow editions, which borrowed from the UK-wide motif of the rainbow as a symbol of hope and support for the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. For one week, the public could purchase one of two editions: a Butterfly Rainbow in support of the British NHS Charities Together or a Butterfly Heart to donate to The Felix Project -- a London charity fighting hunger on a national level.

In 2023, also borrowing from the creative process of his Cherry Blossom works, Hirst created a new series titled Where The Land Meets The Sea, in collaboration with HENI editions and auction house Phillips. In those canvases, Hirst utilisted the cast-off paint of the Cherry Blossoms to create abstract pointillist pieces.