£4,850-£7,500Value Indicator
$9,500-$15,000 Value Indicator
$8,500-$13,500 Value Indicator
¥45,000-¥70,000 Value Indicator
€6,000-€9,000 Value Indicator
$50,000-$70,000 Value Indicator
¥910,000-¥1,410,000 Value Indicator
$6,000-$9,500 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: Foil Block
Edition size: 15
Year: 2009
Size: H 72cm x W 51cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
Watch artwork, manage valuations, track your portfolio and return against your collection
The Dead (Westminster blue, silver gloss) is a signed foil block print in colours on Arches paper produced by renowned contemporary artist, Damien Hirst. In this print, Hirst renders a skull in a bold and deep Westminster blue with silver gloss shading against a plain white backdrop. The skull appears to float in the centre of the composition, staring at the viewer of the print.
The print, made in 2009, is part of the artist’s The Dead series which is composed of thirty-one prints. Like many of his other artworks, death is the central theme of the series, as represented by the skull. Unlike other series, such as I Once Was What You Are, You Will Be What I Am (2007), and Memento (2008), Hirst incorporates bright and vibrant colours into the prints, countering the sombre tone often associated with artworks that deal with death.
Hirst has had a long-standing interest in questions of life and death. When the artist was sixteen, he used to go to the anatomy department of Leeds Medical School to produce life drawings of the cadavers he encountered there. Hirst also created artworks out of dead animals and insects, such as his iconic installation, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) which was a 14-foot long tiger shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde.
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.