He's one of the world's most expensive living artists, the most admired and the most reviled. India got to view fourteen works by Damien worth "£50-million" for the first time ever at an exclusive viewing in New Delhi on Thursday, as part of a select showing before a Sotheby's auction in mid-September in London.
Two hundred and twenty three of Hirst's works, two years in the making, titled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, will be consigned to auction and is estimated to fetch between 68 million and 98 million pounds.
Perhaps the most prominent young British artist, Hirst, is often known to turn the stomachs of viewers and leave them heaving with his "art about death". His works have raised furious debates about what constitutes art, particularly his works in formaldehyde in which he has "pickled" a 14-ft shark, sheep, and a cow and a calf after dissection. Less gruesome works consist of hundreds of dead butterflies, cancer cells, skulls and pills.
The enfant terrible of contemporary art recently sold a grinning skull for an astounding 50 million pound. The work was covered with 8,601 fine diamonds and went on to draw parallels with death in the diamond trade. Hirst's works in India might find buyers among this country's growing community of wealthy art collectors.