Sheet size: 26.0 x 19.3 inches.

Executed in 2011, this print by Damien Hirst is part of his New Beginnings series, a set of six polymer gravure block prints printed on 250gsm Zerkall paper. Challenging the boundaries between both high and low culture as well as art and science, this print showcases one of Hirst’s most recognizable motifs, the butterfly.

Damien Hirst (British, b.1965) is one of the leaders of the Young British Artists - a group of contemporary British artists such as, amongst others, Fiona Rae, Liam Gillick, Sarah Lucas, Ian Davenport, Michael Landy - the winner of the 1995 Turner Prize, and, as of 2009, the wealthiest artist in history. He rose to fame after the success of two warehouse shows he organized featuring his friends' and his own work; at his second show, advertising executive Charles Saatchi purchased Hirst's A Thousand Years, which features a glass case enclosing a rotting head of a cow swarmed with flies. Saatchi promoted Hirst and the Young British Artists for several years, until the relationship ended in 2003.

Hirst's work has generated enormous controversy, in part for its morbidity and fascination with medicine, which is evident in several of his series: the encased dead animals in various states of preservation, the incorporation of butterfly wings into stained glass-like images, cabinets filled with pharmaceuticals, and diamond-encrusted skulls. A team of assistants helps Hirst carry out his projects; his "spot" and "spin" paintings are almost entirely the work of others. In the 1990s, Hirst was also a public figure for drunken and drugged spectacles, but he has since stopped drinking and smoking. Recently, from April 4 to September 9, 2012, his works were exhibited at the Tate Modern in London and his "spot" paintings were part of a world exhibition The Complete Spot Paintings 1986–2011 held by the Gagosian gallery in eleven of its galleries simultaneously, from January 12 to February 18, 2012.

Selected Public Collections:
Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway
Groeninge Museum, Bruges, Belgium
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Tate Modern, London, England
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN