DAMIEN HIRST

Hirst is also still painting in his “little garden shed” in Devon – as he has since 2006. He’s sanguine about the reception of the Wallace Collection show: “I was up for a slapping,” he says. “I didn’t look at the paintings and say, ‘Oh my God! The critics are absolutely right, I’m going to hang myself.’ Andy Warhol says if anyone hates it, do more.” Hirst makes a painterly swirl in the air with his hand.The idea of another big auction doesn’t seem to appeal. His ebullient business manager, Frank Dunphy, who badgered him into going to Sotheby’s, retires at Christmas at 73. Hirst feels lucky to have been so well represented. But he is planning a big sculpture show in five years. As usual, the work will be made at the Pangolin Foundry in Gloucestershire and he already has a title – Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable – “a kind of fantasy on a ship that went down”. My interest is aroused: this sounds like Hirst at his imaginative, outrageous best. I tell him he’s always been good at titles – “I should’ve been a poet,” he laughs.

-Financial Times
Dec 3 2010