Lactulose
Lactulose
Signed Print
Damien Hirst
£19,000-£29,000Value Indicator
$35,000-$60,000 Value Indicator
$35,000-$50,000 Value Indicator
¥170,000-¥260,000 Value Indicator
€22,000-€35,000 Value Indicator
$180,000-$280,000 Value Indicator
¥3,640,000-¥5,550,000 Value Indicator
$23,000-$35,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Woodcut
Edition size: 55
Year: 2017
Size: H 68cm x W 76cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2020 | Sotheby's New York | United States | |||
| October 2020 | Sotheby's New York | United States |
Meaning & Analysis
Lactulose is a 2017 woodcut by British artist, Damien Hirst, that constitutes part of the Spots collection. The 42 spots of several different colours are arranged in a six by seven grid atop an off-white background. The work is signed in the bottom right corner.
The use of spots in Hirst's oeuvre began with the painting of spots in 1986 and developed into a cogent series. Lactulose was named after the drug of the same name. It fits thematically within his Spots collection as numerous other titles, such as Methylamine, Methyl Aspartic Acid, Fenbufen, and several others are also named after chemical compounds many of which are the active component in drugs. Similarly, over 1,400 works, produced on canvas explore this theme.
The work depicts spots in ranging in colour from yellow to blue to brown. It was printed on Somerset wove paper and published by Paragon Press, London. Lactulose fits into a particular group of the Spots collection: those that are arranged in a regular grid pattern, commonly on a white or off-white background. However, Hirst has also experimented using different backgrounds, such as in Silver Spot Landscape, and different compositions, such as in his digital print from 2000, entitled Valium, where the spots are placed in a circular composition.
Damien Hirst, born in Bristol in 1965, is often hailed the enfant terrible of the contemporary art world. His provocative works challenge conventions and his conceptual brilliance spans installations, paintings, and sculptures, often exploring themes of mortality and the human experience. As a leading figure of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement in the late '80s, Hirst's work has dominated the British art scene for decades and has become renowned for being laced with controversy, thus shaping the dialogue of modern art.
