Hirst has always been at the forefront of capitalism in art, from his 2008 auction at Sotheby's to his new burgeoning print editions empire. While he has released a steady stream of prints since the 1990s, this has exploded in recent years. For the past decade, he has been averaging 10,000 print sales per year, meaning that he has almost released as many prints in this time as it's estimated that Picasso did in his lifetime. The performance of these editions is analysed below.
On the eve of the global financial crisis in 2008, Damien Hirst held the auction Beautiful Inside My Head Forever at Sotheby's. It was groundbreaking for its time because, contrary to the prevailing practice, Hirst hosted the auction himself - bypassing the usual route of galleries and selling his paintings and sculptures directly to the public. It raised £110 million.
Fast forward to 2016, when Damien Hirst released Enter the Infinite with the publisher Heni. It was a collection of 12 large (and I mean large, like 2.5x2.5m) woven tapestries based on his Spin Paintings series (see image below). With 20 editions of each colour, they sold for US$6,000 - netting Hirst and Heni over £1 million in revenue. This was collection H1, and they are now up to collection H15. In the last eight years since 2016, the pair have sold more than 70,000 editions for an estimated revenue of more than £140 million.
Damien Hirst's Enter the Infinite - Revelation woven rug (H1-1)
For the Enter the Infinite rug discussed above, one sold for £151,000 at Sotheby's in 2021. That's a price appreciation of 3300% in five years. And such results are not uncommon. Despite seemingly pumping out editions, all but one of the collections increased in value. This can be seen in the useful graph from MyArtBroker below - although I did my own separate analysis and this is included in the Table at the end of the post.
Comparison of auction results in black to original cost in purple of Damien Hirst's prints
(source MyArtBroker, February 2024)
Heni
Heni was allegedly founded in 2009 as an independent publisher by Joe Hage, but verified information about the company and its ownership is difficult to find. It appears to be registered in the UK under various companies including Heni Limited, Heni Holdings Limited and Pierce Protocols Limited. The current director for all three companies is Hannah Pierce, but I couldn't find any information about her online.
For the financial year ended December 2022, the total turnover for the group was £67 million (£45.5m + £21.5m) and profit was £34.4 million (£25.6m + £8.8m), according to statements filed at the UK Companies House.
It's unclear what Hirst's relationship with Heni is. Heni has worked with other artists in the past, notably releasing prints from Gerhard Richter and Peter Doig, but the vast proportion of their work is with Hirst, now also handling aspects of his primary market. It seems unlikely that he's not a partner in the business, although this has never been stated. (If you have any information on this, please hit me up.)
The Virtues
The series The Virtues from 2021 marked a turning point for Hirst and Heni. After exploring the idea of time-limited releases early on in the pandemic, when he released a print series with some proceeds going to the National Health Service in the UK, he adopted the same format for The Virtues collection. The idea being that the number of prints sold will depend on customer demand during a fixed time window. In the end, a total of 7,481 prints were sold across the eight variations, netting an income of around around £18 million.
Damien Hirst's The Virtues editions (H9)
Despite the large supply, anyone who actually purchased one these editions made a pretty good windfall, as auction results for the prints have remained steadily consistent since 2021 - selling for between £10,000 to £20,000. Given they retailed for around £2,500 and were available to anyone who wanted one during the time window, it's an impressive result.
The positives and the negatives
On the positive side, Hirst has done more than almost any other artist to ensure access to signed editions from himself. Most other blue-chip artists release a small number of prints that are largely inaccessible to the public. While collectors may bemoan the rise of these so-called 'timed editions' (as opposed to editions limited by a fixed number), they give everyone an opportunity to purchase the work - as opposed to those lucky enough to win by chance or because of industry connections.
The big negative to me is actually the print quality of the majority of these releases. Heni pioneered a type of print which is a giclee print, mounted on aluminium dibond (for strength) and then covered with a layer of glossy perspex or plastic. The majority of the prints have been in this format, with some exceptions (like The Empresses, which added glitter, and the aforementioned Enter the Infinite, which were woven rugs).
While they look good for some types of images, they look exceptionally cheap for others, especially where the prints are intending to represent textured canvas - because the prints are, by their creation, extremely flat and glossy, as far from paint as you can get. They strike me as symbolic of Hirst, a bit too flashy and gaudy.
Video showing the making of Hirst's print Fruitful and Forever (H8) in 2020
Furthermore, you get the sense that surely at some point Hirst must saturate the market with prints. If he keeps re-releasing existing motifs (like the butterfly prints, cherry blossoms and spin paintings), there must be some market cannibalisation - although nothing is seen so far.
Raw data
Below I have compiled a list of all editions released by Hirst and Heni over the last eight years, along with the sales price and last identified auction results.
Only one edition is worth less now than its purchase price (The Empresses, which featured five different butterfly print designs and 15,333 were sold for US$3,500 each). However, the rest of the editions have increased in value from 30% to many multiples of their original price. Reliable auction information could not be found for some of the newer releases, although preliminary results also suggest that they have appreciated in value.
Edition | Number | Original price | Last auction (July 2024) | Price change |
H1 Enter the Infinite | 240 | £4,686 | £80,000 | 1600% |
H2, H3 Color chart | 500 | £2,900 | £3,800 | 30% |
H4 Veils | 592 | £2,500 | £6,245 | 150% |
H5 Color space | 800 | £3,000 | £7,800 | 160% |
H6 The Aspects | 450 | £4,791 | £20,000 | 320% |
H7 NHS Rainbow and Heart | 10,885 | £300 / £1,000 | £600 / £1,764 | 76% |
H8 Fruitful and Forever | 5236 | £400 / £1,200 | £780 / £1,790 | 30% |
H9 The Virtues | 7481 | £2,346 | £18,000 | 670% |
H10 The Empresses | 15,333 | £2,737 | £1,951 | -30% |
H11 Currency Unique Prints | 1,000 | £782 | £3,500 | 350% |
H13 Where the land meets the sea | 4,138 | £2,186 / £2,737 | £3,465 | 30% |
H14 The Secrets | 3,129 | £2,737 | n/a | n/a |
H15 The Archangels | 400 | £5,857 | n/a | n/a |
Great Expectations | 746 | £1,952 | n/a | n/a |
Beautiful Paintings | 5,508 | £1,173 - £4,692 | n/a | n/a |
The Elements | 300 | £4,692 | £8,890 | 90% |
The Currency | 10,000 | £1,561 | £8,000 | 420% |
For the moment, it seems to be a win-win for Hirst and his fans. He gets to sell large numbers of editions and pocket the change, while his collectors can make a little (or big) profit on the sides and get to have a signed Hirst on their wall (or storage cabinet).
Disclaimer: This is not art or financial advice! The only Hirst edition I currently own is Suiko from The Empresses, which is worth about half what I paid for it. So yes, definitely do not look to me for financial advice in Hirst's print market.
George
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