Del Valle High School is a public high school located in the Del Valle community in unincorporated Travis County, Texas, United States and is part of the Del Valle Independent School District. The high school serves the communities of Austin, Creedmoor, Garfield, Mustang Ridge, Pilot Knob, Elroy, Webberville, and Hornsby Bend.

It is affiliated with Austin Community College.

It was given a "recognized" rating by TEA (Texas Education Agency) for the 2008-2009 school year.

History
In 1956, Del Valle Junior-Senior High School was built to serve grades seven through ten, and grade eleven was added 1957, and a mascot and colors were chosen. During that year, grade twelve was added as was the Cardinal field. Eventually, a new junior-high school was built and served grades seven and eight and an athletic and physical-education field was approved for both the junior high and high school. As time went on, other common school districts kept joining the Colorado Common School District, a.k.a. Del Valle Independent School District (DVISD), and when the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was built, Del Valle High School and all other DVISD schools were relocated to their current locations. In 2000, the new high-school was built on its present site, and in 2007 the district passed another bond-issue, which money was used to relocate the Del Valle Opportunity Center, a new elementary and middle-school were built, and a ninth-grade academy, which is annexed to the high school.

Freshman Academy
The Freshman Academy is the high-school's ninth-grade center which was formed to support incoming Freshmen. The academy aids students in all academic areas. It also offers summer freshman parent/student orientation, a ninth-grade wing, academic teaming, freshman awards, freshman celebration parties, tutorials, and additional administrators.

The Go Center
The Go Center is a place where students find information and guidance in making college and career choices. It consists of the school's college and career counselor and many tools that students of each grade level can use to prepare for and be informed on post-secondary education or the military.

Notable alumni
Curtis Jerrells (born 1987), basketball player for Olimpia Milano

References

 Del Valle High School
 DVISD Secondary Course Catalog (2009–2010). "High School Programs", (38)
 Del Valle High School web site https://web.archive.org/web/20140106154918/http://delvalle.tx.schoolwebpages.com/education/district/district.php?sectionid=1

Public high schools in Travis County, Texas
1956 establishments in Texas

Del Valle High School (Travis County, Texas)


The Pumpkin Diamond is a diamond weighing 5.54 carats (1.108 g) rated in color as Fancy Vivid Orange by the Gemological Institute of America.  While this may seem small when compared to other famous diamonds, the Pumpkin Diamond is, in fact, one of the largest Fancy Vivid Oranges the GIA reports having rated and is unique compared to other orange diamonds because it is light-colored and notably intense.  The Pumpkin Diamond was mined in Central African Republic and then imported into South Africa for sale, it was later cut and polished by William Goldberg, and put to auction at Sotheby's where it was bought by Ronald Winston of the House of Harry Winston for the price of $1.3 million.  It is currently estimated to be valued at $3 million.

Formerly referred to simply as the 5.54 Vivid Orange, Winston named the diamond "The Pumpkin Diamond" as he bought it the day before Halloween.   After buying the Pumpkin, Winston proceeded to have the diamond set in a ring between two smaller white diamonds.  Halle Berry wore the ring to the 2002 Oscars where she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster's Ball.

While it is difficult to tell exactly what status the Pumpkin Diamond currently enjoys, the official GIA web site reports it as "one of the largest Fancy Vivid orange natural color diamonds in the world."  The Color Diamond Encyclopedia, on the other hand, terms it "the world's largest fancy vivid orange diamond."  In 1997, when it was purchased by The House of Harry Winston, the Gemstone Forecaster referred to it as "the only vivid orange ever graded by the GIA" (which is incorrect as there are several other vivid orange stones graded by GIA and offered for sale on websites, past and present).

The Pumpkin Diamond was displayed as part of the Smithsonian's "The Splendor of Diamonds" exhibit, alongside The De Beers Millennium Star, the world's largest top colour (D) internally and externally flawless pear-shaped diamond at 203.04 carat (40.608 g) and The Heart of Eternity, a 27.64 carat (5.528 g) heart-cut blue diamond.

See also
 List of diamonds

References

External links
 Famous Diamonds: The Pumpkin. "The Pumpkin". Retrieved June 7, 2007.

Diamonds originating in the Central African Republic
Individual diamonds

Pumpkin Diamond


Jayanto Banerjee (born 1958), who signs his work Jayanto, is an Indian cartoonist and illustrator. He created the character of the singing donkey Gardhab Das with his cartoonist brother Neelabh Banerjee for the Indian children's magazine Target.

Jayanto was born in Lucknow in 1958. He went to the Christ Church School and had started freelancing while still a teenager, when he landed up at Target magazine. Here he worked as a cartoonist and illustrator, continuing the iconic Gardabh Das strip with Neelabh for twelve years. Later he moved to the India Today Group where he worked on design & illustration for many projects related to politics, business, technology, and especially the lifestyle magazine of the publishing house. Some of his editorial cartoons from this period appear in The India Today Book of Cartoons (Books Today, 2000).

After leaving the India Today Group, he has worked at the Asian Age. He is now at the Hindustan Times, where his cartoon Tooning In appears regularly.

Awards and honors
 26 Aug 2023 | BARTONS lifetime Achievement Award | By Indian Institute of Cartoonists

See also
Gardhab Das

References

External links
Jayanto Banerjee on THE IDEA

Indian comic strip cartoonists
Indian editorial cartoonists
Indian comics artists
Living people
1958 births

Jayanto Banerjee


James Manley is the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Life Sciences at Columbia University, where his laboratory studies gene expression in mammalian cells. Manley and colleagues identified and characterized the key factors responsible for polyadenylation of mRNA precursors, and elucidated how this remarkably complex machinery functions in gene regulation, for example during cell growth and differentiation. He has also studied the mechanism and regulation of the process by which introns are removed from mRNA precursors, mRNA splicing. Manley and his coworkers codiscovered the first alternative splicing factor (SR protein), characterized how this and other splicing regulatory proteins function and are themselves regulated, showed how alternative splicing can become deregulated in disease, and with respect to mechanism demonstrated that two spliceosomal small nuclear RNAs by themselves have catalytic activity. Finally, he elucidated unexpected links between these mRNA processing reactions and transcription, DNA damage signaling and maintenance of genomic stability.  His work has thus provided considerable insight into the complex mechanisms that are essential for the regulated production of mRNAs in mammalian cells.

Career
Manley received a B.S. from Columbia University, Ph.D. from Stony Brook/Cold Spring Harbor Labs, and did postdoctoral work at MIT.  He has been in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University since 1980, was Chair from 1995-2001 and Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Life Sciences since 1995.  His research interests center on understanding the mechanisms and regulation of gene expression in mammalian cells.  His work has been supported by many grants, including an NIH MERIT Award.  He has authored or coauthored over 350 research articles and reviews on these topics, and is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.  Dr. Manley is or has been an Editor of three journals and has served on numerous editorial boards and review panels.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

References

External links
James Manley NCBI publications

21st-century American biologists
Living people
Columbia University faculty
1949 births
Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
Stony Brook University alumni

James L. Manley


When talking about food, a turnover is a piece of dough which is folded so that it can contain a filling.  The turnover is usually baked in the oven, but sometimes it is fried. It can be sweet or salty. Turnovers are often sold as a form of convenience food.

A well-known type of turnover is the calzone, which was first seen in Naples in the 19th century.

Baked foods

Turnover (food)


The Chausath Yogini Temple (64-Yogini Temple) of Hirapur, also said Mahamaya Temple, is 20 km outside Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha state of Eastern India. It devotes to the worship of the yoginis, auspicious goddess-like figures.

Religious aspect

Hirapur's yogini temple is a tantric shrine, with hypaethral (roofless) architecture as tantric prayer rituals involve worshipping the bhumandala (environment consisting all the 5 elements of nature - fire, water, earth, air and ether), and the yoginis believe to be capable of flight.

The yogini idols represent female figures standing on an animal, a demon or a human head depicting the victory of Shakti (Feminine power). The idols express everything from rage, sadness, pleasure, joy, desire and happiness. The number 64 finds its reference in Hindu mythology in forms such as Kālá for time, Kalā for performing arts etc.

Such temples dedicate to yoginis, although rare, are also seen at Ranipur-Jharial site of the Balangir district in Odisha and seven other places in India.

History

The temple is believed to have been built by Queen Hiradevi of the Bramha dynasty during the 9th century.

The legend behind the temple, according to local priests, is that the Goddess Durga took the form of 64 demi-goddesses to defeat a demon. After the fight the 64 goddesses, equated with yoginis, asked Durga to commemorate them in the form of a temple structure.

The temple complex is now maintain by Archaeological Survey of India.

Kalapahad, a Convent Muslim general of 16th CE is believable to attack this temple as well and broken the Murtis = Sculpts. He is known as the destroyer of Puri and Konark temples.

Architecture

The temple is small and circular, only 25 feet in diameter. It is hypaethral, and built of blocks of sandstone. The inside of the circular wall has niches, each housing the statue of a Goddess. 56 of the 64 idols, made of black stone, survive. They surround the main image at the centre of the temple, the Goddess Kali, who stands on a human head, representing the triumph of the heart over the mind. Some historians believe that an idol of Maha Bhairava was worshipped in the Chandi Mandapa. The temple seems to follow a mandala plan in a way that concentric circles are formed while a Shiva at the center inside the inner sanctum is roundly surrounded by four Yoginis and four Bhairavas.

The circle is reached via a protruding entrance passage, so that the plan of the temple has the form of a yoni-pedestal for a Shiva lingam.

The Yogini images depict standing goddesses and their animal vehicles (vahana). The Yoginis are naked but for their bejewelled girdles, from which hang flimsy skirts that can be made out as a light decoration on their legs; they are adorned with bracelets, armlets, necklaces, and anklets.

The scholar István Keul writes that the yogini images are of dark chlorite rock, about 40 cm tall, and standing in varying poses on plinths or vahanas, their animal vehicles; most have "delicate features and sensual bodies with slender waists, broad hips, and high, round breasts" with varying hairstyles and body ornaments.

See also
 Chausath Yogini Temple, Bhedaghat

References

Bibliography

External links

 Detail Study

Ancient Indian culture
Hindu temples in Bhubaneswar
Archaeological monuments in Odisha
Sandstone buildings in India
Hindu temples in Khordha district
Kali temples
Tourist attractions in Bhubaneswar
Shaktism
Yogini temples

Chausath Yogini Temple, Hirapur


Anne Marie Milan Desguillons née Milan (8 May 1753–28 July 1829) was a French stage actress.  She was active in the French Theater of Gustav III in Sweden in 1781-92, and principal of the Royal Dramatic Training Academy jointly with Joseph Sauze Desguillons 1793-98.

Life
Anne Marie Milan debuted in Le Havre 1773, and was active in Lille 1774–75.

French theater of Gustav III

In 1781, she arrived in Sweden as a member of the newly created French theater troupe of Jacques Marie Boutet de Monvel, which was engaged by king Gustav III of Sweden to perform for the Swedish royal court.

The French Theatre performed at the court theatres in Gripsholm Castle, Drottningholm Palace Theatre and Confidencen at Ulriksdal Palace for the Swedish royal court: from the season of 1783-84, they also performed for the public at Bollhuset in Stockholm in winters, though the audience normally consisted exclusively of the upper class society, who could speak French.

Anne Marie Milan Desguillons became a highly valued member of the French theater and was favored by the king.  To her appearance, she was described as heavily overweight and not regarded to be beautiful, but she was much praised for her artistic talent and enjoyed great respect particularly within the court.
She was foremost a tragedienne, performed in tragedies and mére nobleroles, and was normally given main parts in the French tragedies.  Among her parts was Merope, Semiramis and Athalie, but she did occasionally perform comic parts, such as Madame Turcaret.

In 1789, she married her colleague Joseph Sauze Desguillons, and thus required the name Desguillons.

Instructor and principal

After the assassination of Gustav III in 1792, the French theater was dissolved.  Desguillons retired from the stage but chose to remain in Sweden.

In 1793, Anne Marie Milan Desguillons and her spouse Joseph Sauze Desguillons where appointed joint principals of the Royal Dramatic Training Academy. The academy had been founded in 1787, but the Desguillons couple was responsible for giving it a proper organisation, which was kept by their successor Sofia Lovisa Gråå.

The two Desguillons were also instructors at the school.  They instructed the students in drama, while the music lessons was given by Johann Christian Friedrich Hæffner and L. Piccini, and the dancing lessons by Julie Alix de la Fay and Jean-Rémy Marcadet.  They pupils where enrolled at the age of nine or ten and performed as child actors in minor plays as well as in special pupil's plays staged by the school.

She was responsible for the female students, and her husband for the male students.  They are known as the mentors of many later famous Swedish stage artists in Swedish theater history, and thus contributed greatly in shaping the contemporary Swedish acting method in a French pattern.  Among her more known students was Jeanette Wässelius, Sofia Frodelius, Ulrika Wennerholm and Carolina Kuhlman.  Anne Marie Milan Desguillons retired as a principal in 1798.

In 1803, king Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden engaged a French theatre company to perform, and the Desguillons couple were made joint directors responsible of the company during its stay in Sweden. They kept this role until the French company left in 1806.

See also
 Marie Louise Marcadet
 Marie Baptiste

References

 Österberg, Carin, Lewenhaupt, Inga & Wahlberg, Anna Greta, Svenska kvinnor: föregångare nyskapare, Signum, Lund, 1990 1990 (Swedish)
 Kjellberg, Bertil, Beijer, Agne & Andersson, Ingvar (red.), Gustavianskt: [1771-1810], Wahlström & Widstrand, Stockholm, 1945

1753 births
1829 deaths
Expatriate actresses in Sweden
18th-century French actresses
French stage actresses
Drama teachers
Gustavian era people

Anne Marie Milan Desguillons


Cephalaspis (meaning 'head shield') is a genus of armoured fish in the early Devonian about 400 million years ago (mya).
It was one of the jawless fishes, or ostracoderms, which were common at the time.

They were discovered in the first half of the 19th century in the Old Red Sandstone of Britain. Louis Agassiz named it in 1835. He had been to Scotland, and seen Hugh Miller's collection. Miller described his collecting later, in a popular work on the rocks and fossils of the Old Red Sandstone in Scotland. Agassoz' single species has now been split into more species, some of which have been moved into a different genus.

Lifestyle
Cephalaspis was a medium-sized fish that lived in freshwater streams and estuaries of the early Devonian. Some of the fossils are well-preserved, and so we know quite a bit about its anatomy. Its armour was on the dorsal side, and its mouth on the ventral side. Therefore, it is likely that it was a bottom-feeder, nosing about in the mud of a river. It had a typical vertebrate type of brain, with front, middle and rear regions, and nerves to and from sense organs and  muscles in the head region.

Its pineal opening between its eyes was probably a light-sensitive organ. On its skull are three areas which obviously had a special function. Many modern fish which live in muddy rivers use both pressure-sensitive lateral lines, and also electrical fields to sense movement. Cephalaspis had no lateral lines, but the three fields on its skull were no doubt sensory, for sensing pressure change or electrical fields.

The animal had semi-circular canals to sense balance (one of the functions of our own semi-circular canals). They were capable of sustained swimming, and short rapid bursts. Almost all the fossils are found in strata laid down in freshwater conditions, so the various species live in rivers, streams connected with lakes and estuaries.

Sansom decided that Cephalaspis was the sister-taxon of cornuate osteostracans, which have defined corners on the head-shields.

References

Agnatha

Cephalaspis


Nils Svante Flyg  (9 June 1891 – 9 January 1943) was a Swedish Communist politician who turned pro-Nazi during World War II.

Nils Flyg was born and raised in Södermalm, a working-class area of Stockholm at the time. Early on he joined the Swedish Social Democratic Party's youth organization, the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League. In 1917, Flyg took part in the founding of a new leftist party, a group headed by Zeth Höglund and Karl Kilbom, which would soon become the Communist Party of Sweden.

Flyg became an important leader of the Communist Party, wrote books and went on political trips to the Soviet Union. In the general election of 1928, with the Flyg-dominated Communists cooperating with the dominant Social Democratic Party, he failed to achieve an influential position as voters failed to show substantial support for a Communist-Social Democratic coalition. In 1929 Flyg, along with the majority of the party's membership, was accused of insufficient loyalty to the Soviet-dominated Comintern and expelled from the party. The same year Flyg and Kilbom founded a new, parallel Communist Party, which claimed to be the real Communist Party of Sweden.

Initially Flyg and Kilbom attempted to reconcile with the Comintern, something that soon proved fruitless. Flyg and Kilbom who supported Nikolai Bukharin and his Right Opposition, gradually developed an animosity towards Stalinism. By 1934 the party had changed name to the Socialist Party (Socialistiska partiet). At first, the Socialist Party still supported the Soviet Union but condemned the Stalinist leadership. But by the end of the 1930s, the party had changed its view and criticized the whole of the Soviet Union, a stance that gradually developed to a foreign policy embracing Nazi Germany.

In 1937 Kilbom was expelled from the party after a few years of disputes and personal struggle between the two leaders. After the expulsion of Kilbom a majority of the members of the party left. The Socialist Party shrank dramatically and Flyg became more and more politically isolated.

At the beginning of World War II, Flyg came out in opposition to fascism, and the Nazi-Soviet pact in his eyes proved that Stalinism was just as bad as fascism. But when Hitler broke the pact with Stalin, and Germany launched the invasion against the Soviet Union, Flyg decided that he had to support the Nazis against Stalin, hoping it would lead to the end of Stalinism. Financial constraints led him to approach the German High Commission in Stockholm. Initially, the Germans turned down his request for funding, but in the final stages of the war (when the Germans felt a more urgent need for allies in the Swedish politics) funding was granted. Gradually, Flyg and his party developed a pro-Nazi position.

Still, Nils Flyg never fully gave in to Hitlerism. He was neither an adherent of core fascist or racist policies, and considered himself a socialist until his death. He was against capitalism and imperialism and openly supported the basic ideas of Marx and Lenin. In one speech to a group of Swedish Nazis, he caused confusion when he declared: "Death to communism! Long live communism!".

References

1891 births
1943 deaths
Politicians from Stockholm
Members of the Riksdag from the Left Party (Sweden)
Socialist Party (Sweden, 1929) politicians
Swedish anti-capitalists
Swedish communists
Leaders of political parties in Sweden
Members of the Andra kammaren

Nils Flyg


Damien Steven Hirst (; né
Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is a British artist and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.

Death is a central theme in Hirst's works. He became famous for a series of artworks in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep, and a cow) are preserved, sometimes having been dissected, in formaldehyde. The best-known of these was The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a  tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a clear display case. He has also made "spin paintings", created on a spinning circular surface, and "spot paintings", which are rows of randomly coloured circles created by his assistants.

In September 2008, Hirst made an unprecedented move for a living artist by selling a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby's by auction and bypassing his long-standing galleries. The auction raised £111 million ($198 million), breaking the record for a one-artist auction as well as Hirst's own record with £10.3 million for The Golden Calf, an animal with 18-carat gold horns and hooves, preserved in formaldehyde.

Since 1999, Hirst's works have been challenged and contested as plagiarised 16 times. In one instance, after his sculpture Hymn was found to be closely based on a child's toy, legal proceedings led to an out-of-court settlement.

Early life and training
Hirst was born Damien Steven Brennan in Bristol and grew up in Leeds with his Irish mother who worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau. He never met his father; his mother married his stepfather when Hirst was two, and the couple divorced 10 years later. His stepfather was reportedly a motor mechanic.

His mother stated that she lost control of her son when he was young, as he was notably arrested on two occasions for shoplifting. Hirst sees her as someone who would not tolerate rebellion: she cut up his bondage trousers and heated one of his Sex Pistols vinyl records on the cooker to turn it into a fruit bowl (or a plant pot). He says, "If she didn't like how I was dressed, she would quickly take me away from the bus stop". She did, though, encourage his liking for drawing, which was his only successful educational subject.

His art teacher at Allerton Grange School "pleaded" for Hirst to be allowed to enter the sixth form, where he took two A-levels, achieving an "E" grade in art. He was refused admission to Jacob Kramer College when he first applied, but attended the art school after a subsequent successful application to the Foundation Diploma course.

He went to an exhibition of work by Francis Davison, staged by Julian Spalding at the Hayward Gallery in 1983. Davison created abstract collages from torn and cut coloured paper which, Hirst said, "blew me away", and which he modelled his own work on for the next two years.

He worked for two years on London building sites, then studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College (1986–89), although again he was refused a place the first time he applied. In 2007, Hirst was quoted as saying of An Oak Tree by Goldsmiths' senior tutor, Michael Craig-Martin: "That piece is, I think, the greatest piece of conceptual sculpture. I still can't get it out of my head." While a student, Hirst had a placement at a mortuary, an experience that influenced his later themes and materials. While an art student, Hirst was an assistant at Anthony d'Offays gallery.

Early career—student and warehouse shows

In July 1988, in his second year at Goldsmiths College, Hirst was the main organiser of an independent student exhibition, Freeze, in a disused London Port Authority administrative block in London's Docklands. He gained sponsorship for this event from the London Docklands Development Corporation. The show was visited by Charles Saatchi, Norman Rosenthal and Nicholas Serota, thanks to the influence of his Goldsmiths lecturer Michael Craig-Martin. Hirst's own contribution to the show consisted of a cluster of cardboard boxes painted with household paint. After graduating, Hirst was included in New Contemporaries show and in a group show at Kettle's Yard gallery in Cambridge. Seeking a gallery dealer, he first approached Karsten Schubert, but was turned down.

Hirst, along with his friend Carl Freedman and Billee Sellman, curated two enterprising "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and Gambler, in a Bermondsey former Peek Freans biscuit factory they designated "Building One". Saatchi arrived at the second show in a green Rolls-Royce and, according to Freedman, stood open-mouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding on a rotting cow's head. They also staged Michael Landy's Market. At this time, Hirst said, "I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."

Professional career

1987–1990
1987 – Damien Hirst and Holden Rowan, Old Court Gallery, Windsor Arts Centre, Windsor, UK – Curator Derek Culley

1988 – Damien Hirst: Constructions and Sculpture, Old Court Gallery, Windsor, UK -Curator Derek Culley

1988 – Freeze, Surrey Docks, London, UK

1989 – New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK

1990 – Modern Medicine, Building One, London, UK

1990 – Gambler, Building One, London, UK

1990 – Building One, Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Paris, FR

1991–1994
His first solo exhibition, organised by Tamara Chodzko – Dial, In and Out of Love, was held in an unused shop on Woodstock Street in central London in 1991; already in 1989 he had been part of a group exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Paris. The Serpentine Gallery presented the first survey of the new generation of artists with the exhibition Broken English, in part curated by Hirst. In 1991 Hirst met the up-and-coming art dealer, Jay Jopling, who then represented him.

In 1991, Charles Saatchi had offered to fund whatever artwork Hirst wanted to make, and the result was showcased in 1992 in the first Young British Artists exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in North London. Hirst's work was titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and was a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and sold for £50,000. The shark had been caught by a commissioned fisherman in Australia and had cost £6,000. The exhibition also included In a Thousand Years. As a result of the show, Hirst was nominated for that year's Turner Prize, but it was awarded to Grenville Davey.

Hirst's first major international presentation was in the Venice Biennale in 1993 with the work, Mother and Child Divided, a cow and a calf cut into sections and exhibited in a series of separate vitrines. He curated the show Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away in 1994 at the Serpentine Gallery in London, where he exhibited Away from the Flock (a sheep in a tank of formaldehyde). On 9 May, Mark Bridger, a 35-year-old artist from Oxford, walked into the gallery and poured black ink into the tank, and retitled the work Black Sheep. He was subsequently prosecuted, at Hirst's wish, and was given two years' probation. The sculpture was restored at a cost of £1,000. When a photograph of Away from the Flock was reproduced in the 1997 book by Hirst I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one-to-one, always, forever, now, the vandalism was referenced by allowing the tank to be obscured by pulling a card, reproducing the effect of ink being poured into the tank; this resulted in Hirst being sued by Bridger for violating his copyright on Black Sheep.

1995–1999
In 1995, Hirst won the Turner Prize. New York public health officials banned Two Fucking and Two Watching featuring a rotting cow and bull, because of fears of "vomiting among the visitors". There were solo shows in Seoul, London and Salzburg. He directed the video for the song "Country House" for the band Blur. No Sense of Absolute Corruption, his first solo show in the Gagosian Gallery in New York was staged the following year. In London the short film, Hanging Around, was shown—written and directed by Hirst and starring Eddie Izzard. In 1997 the Sensation exhibition opened at the Royal Academy in London. A Thousand Years and other works by Hirst were included, but the main controversy occurred over other artists' works. It was nevertheless seen as the formal acceptance of the YBAs into the establishment.

In 1997, his autobiography and art book, I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, was published. With Alex James of the band Blur and actor Keith Allen, he formed the band Fat Les, achieving a number 2 hit with a raucous football-themed song Vindaloo, followed up by Jerusalem with the London Gay Men's Chorus. Hirst also painted a simple colour pattern for the Beagle 2 probe. This pattern was to be used to calibrate the probe's cameras after it had landed on Mars. He turned down the British Council's invitation to be the UK's representative at the 1999 Venice Biennale because "it didn't feel right". He threatened to sue British Airways claiming a breach of copyright over an advert design with coloured spots for its low budget airline, Go.

2000–2004
In 2000, Hirst's sculpture Hymn (which Saatchi had bought for a reported £1m) was given pole position at the show Ant Noises (an anagram of "sensation") in the Saatchi Gallery. Hirst was then sued himself for breach of copyright over this sculpture (see Appropriation below). Hirst sold three more copies of his sculpture for similar amounts to the first. In September 2000, in New York, Larry Gagosian held the Hirst show, Damien Hirst: Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings. 100,000 people visited the show in 12 weeks and all the work was sold.

On 10 September 2002, on the eve of the first anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, Hirst said in an interview with BBC News Online:

The next week, following public outrage at his remarks, he issued a statement through his company, Science Ltd:

In 2002, Hirst gave up smoking and drinking after his wife Maia had complained and "had to move out because I was so horrible". He had met Joe Strummer (former lead singer of The Clash) at Glastonbury in 1995, becoming good friends and going on annual family holidays with him. Just before Christmas 2002, Strummer died of a heart attack. This had a profound effect on Hirst, who said, "It was the first time I felt mortal". He subsequently devoted a lot of time to founding a charity, Strummerville, to help young musicians.

In April 2003, the Saatchi Gallery opened at new premises in County Hall, London, with a show that included a Hirst retrospective. This brought a developing strain in his relationship with Saatchi to a head (one source of contention had been who was most responsible for boosting their mutual profile). Hirst disassociated himself from the retrospective to the extent of not including it in his CV. He was angry that a Mini car that he had decorated for charity with his trademark spots was being exhibited as a serious artwork. The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern. He said Saatchi was "childish" and "I'm not Charles Saatchi's barrel-organ monkey ... He only recognises art with his wallet ... he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it."

In September 2003, he had an exhibition Romance in the Age of Uncertainty at Jay Jopling's White Cube gallery in London, which made him a reported £11m, bringing his wealth to over £35m. It was reported that a sculpture, Charity, had been sold for £1.5m to a Korean, Kim Chang-Il, who intended to exhibit it in his department store's gallery in Seoul. The 22-foot (6.7m), 6-ton sculpture was based on the 1960s Spastic Society's model, which is of a girl in leg irons holding a collecting box. In Hirst's version the collecting box is shown broken open and is empty.

Charity was exhibited in the centre of Hoxton Square, in front of White Cube. Inside the gallery downstairs were 12 vitrines representing Jesus's disciples, each case containing mostly gruesome, often blood-stained, items relevant to the particular disciple. At the end was an empty vitrine, representing Christ. Upstairs were four small glass cases, each containing a cow's head stuck with scissors and knives. It has been described as an "extraordinarily spiritual experience" in the tradition of Catholic imagery. At this time Hirst bought back 12 works from Saatchi (a third of Saatchi's holdings of Hirst's early works), through Jay Jopling, reportedly for more than £8 million. Hirst had sold these pieces to Saatchi in the early 1990s for rather less, his first installations costing under £10,000.

On 24 May 2004, a fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including 17 of Hirst's, although the sculpture Charity survived, as it was outside in the builder's yard. That July, Hirst said of Saatchi, "I respect Charles. There's not really a feud. If I see him, we speak, but we were never really drinking buddies."

Hirst designed a cover image for the Band Aid 20 charity single featuring the "Grim Reaper" in late 2004, and image showing an African child perched on his knee. This design was not to the liking of the record company executives, and was replaced by reindeer in the snow standing next to a child.

In December 2004, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was sold by Saatchi to American collector Steve Cohen, for $8 million, in a deal negotiated by Hirst's New York agent, Gagosian. Cohen, a Greenwich hedge fund manager, then donated the work to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Sir Nicholas Serota had wanted to acquire it for the Tate Gallery, and Hugo Swire, Shadow Minister for the Arts, tabled a question to ask if the government would ensure it stayed in the country.

2005–2009
Hirst exhibited 30 paintings at the Gagosian Gallery in New York in March 2005. These had taken 3½ years to complete. They were closely based on photos, mostly by assistants (who were rotated between paintings) but with a final finish by Hirst. Also in 2005, Hirst founded the art book publisher Other Criteria.

In February 2006, he opened a major show in Mexico, at the Hilario Galguera Gallery, called The Death of God, Towards a Better Understanding of Life without God aboard The Ship of Fools, an exhibition that attracted considerable media coverage as Hirst's first show in Latin America. In June that year, he exhibited alongside the work of Francis Bacon (Triptychs) at the Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street, London, an exhibition that included the vitrine, A Thousand Years (1990), and four triptychs: paintings, medicine cabinets and a new formaldehyde work entitled The Tranquility of Solitude (For George Dyer), influenced by Bacon.

A Thousand Years (1990) contains an actual life cycle. Maggots hatch inside a white minimal box, turn into flies, then feed on a bloody, severed cow's head on the floor of a claustrophobic glass vitrine. Above, hatched flies buzz around in the closed space. Many meet a violent end in an insect-o-cutor; others survive to continue the cycle. A Thousand Years was admired by Bacon, who in a letter to a friend a month before he died, wrote about the experience of seeing the work at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Margarita Coppack notes that "It is as if Bacon, a painter with no direct heir in that medium, was handing the baton on to a new generation." Hirst has openly acknowledged his debt to Bacon, absorbing the painter's visceral images and obsessions early on and giving them concrete existence in sculptural form with works like A Thousand Years.

Hirst gained the world record for the most expensive work of art by a living artist—his Lullaby Spring in June 2007, when a 3-metre-wide steel cabinet with 6,136 pills sold for 19.2 million dollars to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar.

In June 2007, Beyond Belief, an exhibition of Hirst's new work, opened at the White Cube gallery in London. The centre-piece, a Memento Mori titled For the Love of God, was a human skull recreated in platinum and adorned with 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats. Approximately £15,000,000 worth of diamonds were used. It was modelled on an 18th-century skull, but the only surviving human part of the original is the teeth. The asking price for For the Love of God was £50,000,000 ($100 million or 75 million euros). It didn't sell outright, and on 30 August 2008 was sold to a consortium that included Hirst himself and his gallery White Cube.

In November 2008, the skull was exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam next to an exhibition of paintings from the museum collection selected by Hirst. Wim Pijbes, the museum director, said of the exhibition, "It boosts our image. Of course, we do the Old Masters but we are not a 'yesterday institution'. It's for now. And Damien Hirst shows this in a very strong way."

In December 2008, Hirst contacted the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) demanding action be taken over works containing images of his skull sculpture For the Love of God made by a 16-year-old graffiti artist, Cartrain, and sold on the internet gallery 100artworks.com. On the advice of his gallery, Cartrain handed over the artworks to DACS and forfeited the £200 he had made; he said, "I met Christian Zimmermann [from DACS] who told me Hirst personally ordered action on the matter." In June 2009, copyright lawyer Paul Tackaberry compared the two images and said, "This is fairly non-contentious legally. Ask yourself, what portion of the original–and not just the quantity but also the quality–appears in the new work? If a 'substantial portion' of the 'original' appears in the new work, then that's all you need for copyright infringement... Quantitatively about 80% of the skull is in the second image."

In April – September 2009, the exhibition Requiem took place in the Victor Pinchuk art centre.

In October 2009, Hirst revealed that he had been painting with his own hand in a style influenced by Francis Bacon for several years. His show of these paintings, No Love Lost, was at the Wallace Collection in London.

2010–2014
In 2011, Damien Hirst designed the cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album I'm with You.

Hirst's representation of the British Union Flag formed the arena centrepiece for the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London. In January 2013, Hirst became the third British artist to design the Brit Awards statue using his signature NEO-Pop art style inspired by his 2000 LSD "spot painting." In October 2014, Hirst exhibited big scale capsules, pills and medicines at the Paul Stolper Gallery titled: 'Schizophrenogenesis'.

2015–present

In April 2016, a study published in Analytical Methods claimed Hirst's preserved carcasses leaked formaldehyde gas above legal limits at Tate Modern; however, this study was shown to be flawed.

In 2017, he organised with Pinault Foundation a solo exhibition, in Venice contemporarily to the Biennale in two places in the city: Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. The title is Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, purporting to present ancient treasures from a sunken Greek ship, with pieces that range from Ancient Egyptian-alike items to Disney character reproductions, encrusted with shells and corals.

In July 2021 through January 2022, Hirst's series Cherry Blossoms was exhibited at the Foundation Cartier in Paris. The exhibition was then moved to the National Art Center in Tokyo in 2022. The show marked Hirst's first major solo exhibition in Japan.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

This artwork features a large tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde. The tank in which the shark is floating creates the illusion of the animal being cut into three pieces due to the container looking like three separate sections. The work was created in 1991, and since then, the formaldehyde preserving the shark has slowly eaten away at the animal's body, which shows signs of decay. Hirst says that the formaldehyde surrounding the shark is the process of death and decay.

Some critics argue that the minimalistic qualities of the work, coinciding with the 'stereotypical' death theme, are too bland for such a prestigious artist. One critic wrote, "But the famous shark, shackled to its coffeebar-existentialist title – The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – seems ever more dilapidated, more fairground sideshow, with every dowdy showing. What clichéd menace it may once have theoretically possessed has evaporated."  Another art critic, Luke White, disagrees, saying that others had earlier perceived sharks "...as ugly and dangerous, but by the end of the century, they found them instead exhilarating, fascinating, and sublime." White argues that sharks have been seen as transcendent, awe-inspiring creatures throughout centuries, a creature that is the embodiment of sublimitude as well as a metaphorical representation of our mind helps, relaying the importance of how special our thoughts really are.

Beautiful Inside My Head Forever

Beautiful Inside My Head Forever was a two-day auction of Hirst's new work at Sotheby's, London, taking place on 15 and 16 September 2008. It was unusual as he bypassed galleries and sold directly to the public. Writing in The Independent, Cahal Milmo said that the idea of the auction was conceived by Hirst's business advisor of 13 years, Frank Dunphy, who had to overcome Hirst's initial reluctance about the idea. Hirst eventually defended the concept and refuted the accusation that he was only interested in making money.

The sale raised £111 million ($198 million) for 218 items. The auction exceeded expectations, and was ten times higher than the existing Sotheby's record for a single artist sale, occurring as the financial markets plunged. The Sunday Times said that Hirst's business colleagues had "propped up" the sale prices, making purchases or bids which totalled over half of the £70.5 million spent on the first sale day: Harry Blain of the Haunch of Venison gallery said that bids were entered on behalf of clients wishing to acquire the work.

Hirst art collecting
In November 2006, Hirst was curator of In the darkest hour there may be light, shown at the Serpentine Gallery, London, the first public exhibition of (a small part of) his own collection. Now known as the 'murderme collection', this significant accumulation of works spans several generations of international artists, from well-known figures such as Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince, Banksy and Andy Warhol, to British painters such as John Bellany, John Hoyland, and Gary Hume, and artists in earlier stages of their careers Rachel Howard, David Choe, Ross Minoru Laing, Nicholas Lumb, Tom Ormond, and Dan Baldwin.

Hirst is currently restoring the Grade I listed Toddington Manor, near Cheltenham, where he intends to eventually house the complete collection. In 2007, Hirst donated the 1991 sculptures "The Acquired Inability to Escape" and "Life Without You" and the 2002 work "Who is Afraid of the Dark?" (fly painting), and an exhibition copy from 2007 of "Mother and Child Divided" to Tate from his own personal collection of works.

In 2010, Hirst was among the unsuccessful bidders to take over the Magazine Building, a 19th-century structure in Kensington Gardens, which reopened in 2013 as the Serpentine Sackler Gallery after its conversion by Zaha Hadid. In March 2012, he outlined his plans to open a gallery in Vauxhall, London specifically designed to exhibit his personal collection, which includes five pieces by Francis Bacon. The Newport Street Gallery opened in October 2015. It is located in a former theater carpentry and scenery production workshops redesigned by Peter St John and Adam Caruso, and runs the length of Newport Street in Vauxhall.

Awards and recognition
Hirst was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1992, for his first Young British Artists exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in North London, which included his The Physical Impossibility of Death..., with the award going to Grenville Davey that year.

Hirst won the Turner Prize in 1995. He was asked to represent the UK in the Venice Biennale in 1999 or to become a Royal Academian but refused.

In 2012, Hirst was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his album cover for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires.

Critical responses

Positive
Hirst has been praised in recognition of his celebrity and the way this has galvanised interest in the arts, raising the profile of British art and helping to (re)create the image of "Cool Britannia." In the mid-1990s, the then-Heritage Secretary, Virginia Bottomley recognised him as "a pioneer of the British art movement", and even sheep farmers were pleased he had raised increased interest in British lamb. Janet Street-Porter praised his originality, which had brought art to new audiences and was the "art-world equivalent of the Oasis concerts at Earl's Court".

Andres Serrano is also known for shocking work and understands that contemporary fame does not necessarily equate to lasting fame, but backs Hirst: "Damien is very clever ... First you get the attention ... Whether or not it will stand the test of time, I don't know, but I think it will." Sir Nicholas Serota commented, "Damien is something of a showman ... It is very difficult to be an artist when there is huge public and media attention. Because Damien Hirst has been built up as a very important figure, there are plenty of sceptics ready to put the knife in."

Tracey Emin said: "There is no comparison between him and me; he developed a whole new way of making art and he's clearly in a league of his own. It would be like making comparisons with Warhol." Despite Hirst's insults to him, Saatchi remains a staunch supporter, labelling Hirst a genius, and stating:

Hirst was among the names in Blake Gopnik's 2011 list "The 10 Most Important Artists of Today", with Gopnik interpreting Hirst's career as "a metaphor for how consumption has become our guiding force".

Negative
There has been equally vehement opposition to Hirst's work. Of Hirst's work, the former Evening Standard art critic, Brian Sewell, expressed the following: "I don't think of it as art ... It is no more interesting than a stuffed pike over a pub door. Indeed there may well be more art in a stuffed pike than a dead sheep."

The Stuckist art group was founded in 1999 with a specific anti-Britart agenda by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish; Hirst is one of their main targets. They wrote (referring to a Channel 4 programme on Hirst):

In 2003, under the title A Dead Shark Isn't Art, the Stuckism International Gallery exhibited a shark which had first been put on public display two years before Hirst's by Eddie Saunders in his Shoreditch shop, JD Electrical Supplies. Thomson asked, "If Hirst's shark is recognised as great art, then how come Eddie's, which was on exhibition for two years beforehand, isn't? Do we perhaps have here an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first, or is it that a dead shark isn't art at all?" The Stuckists suggested that Hirst may have got the idea for his work from Saunders' shop display.

In a 2008 Channel 4 documentary called The Mona Lisa Curse, art critic Robert Hughes claimed that Hirst's work was "tacky" and "absurd". Hughes said it was "a little miracle" that the value of £5 million was put on Hirst's Virgin Mother (a 35-foot bronze statue), which was made by someone "with so little facility". Hughes called Hirst's shark in formaldehyde "the world's most over-rated marine organism" and attacked the artist for "functioning like a commercial brand", making the case that Hirst and his work proved that financial value was now the only meaning that remained for art.

Hirst's 2009 show, No Love Lost, of paintings by his own hand, at the Wallace Collection in London, received "one of the most unanimously negative responses to any exhibition in living memory". Tom Lubbock of The Independent called Hirst's work derivative, weak and boring: "Hirst, as a painter, is at about the level of a not-very-promising, first-year art student." Rachel Campbell-Johnston of The Times said it was "shockingly bad". A 2012 exhibition of paintings by Hirst at the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey, entitled "Two Weeks One Summer", provoked in The Guardian the comment that Hirst "can kid himself he is an Old Master and have the art world go along with the fantasy".

Julian Spalding, British art critic and author of the book Con Art – Why You Should Sell Your Damien Hirsts While You Can, has said,

Hirst's 2012 retrospective at the Tate Gallery, while setting records for attendance, also received many complaints. "Members of the public wrote to the state-funded gallery accusing it of wasting taxpayers' money by showcasing art that was 'repetitive', 'meaningless' and 'almost universally awful'."

Hirst's work has also been a frequent subject of criticism in the tabloid press. A Daily Mail headline read: "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all." Norman Tebbit, commenting on the Sensation exhibition, wrote "Have they gone stark raving mad? The works of the 'artist' are lumps of dead animals. There are thousands of young artists who didn't get a look in, presumably because their work was too attractive to sane people. Modern art experts never learn."

Appropriation and plagiarism claims
In 1999, chef Marco Pierre White said Hirst's Butterflies on Mars had plagiarised his own work, Rising Sun, which he then put on display in the restaurant Quo Vadis in place of Hirst's work.

In 2000, Hirst was sued for breach of copyright over his sculpture, Hymn, which was a , six ton, enlargement of his son Connor's 14" Young Scientist Anatomy Set, designed by Norman Emms, 10,000 of which are sold a year by Hull-based toy manufacturer Humbrol for £14.99 each. Hirst paid an undisclosed sum to two charities, Children Nationwide and the Toy Trust, in an out-of-court settlement, as well as a "good will payment" to Emms. The charitable donation was less than Emms had hoped for. Hirst also agreed to restrictions on further reproductions of his sculpture.

In 2006, a graphic artist and former research associate at the Royal College of Art, Robert Dixon, author of 'Mathographics', alleged that Hirst's print Valium had "unmistakable similarities" to one of his own designs. Hirst's manager contested this by explaining the origin of Hirst's piece was from a book The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry (1991)—not realising this was one place where Dixon's design had been published.

In 2007, artist John LeKay, a friend of Damien Hirst between 1992 and 1994, was reported by Dalya Alberge of The Times to have provided ideas and inspirations for a variety of his later works, including having given him a "marked-up duplicate copy" of a Carolina Biological Supply Company catalogue that LeKay had been using as inspiration and supply for his work, noting that "You have no idea how much he got from this catalogue. The Cow Divided is on page 647—it is a model of a cow divided down the centre, like his piece", a reference to Hirst's work Mother and Child, Divided, a cow and calf cut in half and placed in formaldehyde. LeKay also suggests that Hirst copied the idea of For the Love of God from his work on crystal skulls in 1993, saying, "I would like Damien to acknowledge that 'John really did inspire the skull and influenced my work a lot.'" Copyright lawyer Paul Tackaberry reviewed images of LeKay's and Hirst's work and saw no basis for any appropriation rising to the legal level of a copyright infringement.

In 2010, in 3:AM Magazine and in The Jackdaw, Charles Thomson argued that there are 15 cases where Hirst plagiarised the work of others, including his enlarged version of an anatomical torso model, Hymn (1999) which Thomson presents alongside a comparable John LeKay's anatomical torso model from Carolina Science, Yin and Yang (1990), and Hirst's In Nomine Patris [In the Name of the Father] (2005), which presents a split-open crucified sheep in a tank of formaldehyde, after John LeKay's comparably posed split-open crucified sheep, entitled This is My Body, This is My Blood (1987) mounted on a wooden board. Other examples cited were the similarity of Hirst's cabinets with shelves and bottles, e.g., My Way (1991), which expanded to become his room-size installation, Pharmacy (1992), which Thomson relates to a Joseph Cornell display of cabinet with shelves and bottles, Pharmacy (1943); and Hirst's appropriation of concept from Lori Precious, who had made stained-glass window effects from butterfly wings from 1994, a number of years before Hirst. The art gallery lemon sky: projects + editions exhibited a selection of these works by Precious at the Year 06 Contemporary Art Fair in London in October 2006, where these pieces were viewed by a large audience and would have been seen at that time, to have credibly been plagiarized. Thomson also suggested that Hirst's spin paintings and installation of a ball on a jet of air were not original, since similar pieces had been made in the 1960s. A spokesperson for Hirst said the article was "poor journalism" and that Hirst would be making a "comprehensive" rebuttal of the claims.

In May 2017 Hirst was accused of copying and appropriating Yoruba art from Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in his work Golden Heads (Female), which is on display in his exhibition "Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable" at the Venice Biennale. The work, said critics, was not given appropriate context for viewers.

Commenting on his collection, Hirst has said "As a human being, as you go through life, you just do collect. It was that sort of entropic collecting that I found myself interested in, just amassing stuff while you're alive."

In 2022 artist and writer Joe Machine accused Hirst of plagiarism of his cherry blossom paintings, the 16th accusation of plagiarism against Hirst.

Hirst business ventures

Work philosophy
Although Hirst participated physically in the making of early works, he has always needed assistants—for instance, Carl Freedman helped with the first vitrines—and the current volume of work produced necessitates a "factory" setup. this has led to questions about authenticity, as was highlighted in 1997, when a spin painting that Hirst said was a "forgery" appeared at sale, although he had previously said that he often had nothing to do with the creation of these pieces.

Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself because, "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it"; he described his efforts as "shite"—"They're shit compared to ... the best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel." He also describes another painting assistant who was leaving and asked for one of the paintings. Hirst told her to, "'make one of your own.' And she said, 'No, I want one of yours.' But the only difference, between one painted by her and one of mine, is the money.'" By February 1999, two assistants had painted 300 spot paintings. Hirst sees the real creative act as being the conception, not the execution, and that, as the progenitor of the idea, he is therefore the artist:

Hirst is also known to volunteer repair work on his projects after a client has made a purchase. For example, this service was offered in the case of the suspended shark purchased by Steven A. Cohen.

Restaurant ventures
Hirst had a short-lived partnership with chef Marco Pierre White in the restaurant "Quo Vadis". His best-known restaurant involvement was Pharmacy, located in Notting Hill, London, which closed in 2004. Although one of the owners, Hirst had only leased his art work to the restaurant, so he was able to retrieve and sell it at a Sotheby's auction, earning over £11 million. Some of the work had been adapted, e.g. by signing it prior to the auction.

Hirst is a co-owner of the seafood restaurant, 11 The Quay, in the English seaside town of Ilfracombe. In 2016, Damien Hirst designed the interiors of his new restaurant Pharmacy 2 at the Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, London.

Net worth
Art by Hirst sold at his auction in 2008, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, raised US$198 million It is said to be the largest amount raised by any living artist to date. Hirst is reputed to be the richest living artist to date. In 2009, the annually collated chart of the wealthiest individuals in Britain and Ireland, Sunday Times Rich List, placed Hirst at joint number 238 with a net worth of £235m. Hirst's wealth was valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, making him Britain's wealthiest artist.

Works published, shown, sold

Written

Art
His works include:

 Pharmacy (1992), a life-size recreation of a chemist's shop.
 Away from the Flock (1994), composed of a dead sheep in a glass tank of formaldehyde.
 Beautiful Axe, Slash, Gosh Painting (1999) Signed on the reverse. Gloss household paint on canvas.
 The Virgin Mother, a massive sculpture depicting a pregnant female human, with layers removed from one side to expose the fœtus, muscle and tissue layers, and skull underneath. This work was purchased by real estate magnate Aby Rosen for display on the plaza of one of his properties, the Lever House, in New York City.
 Painting-By-Numbers (2001), a do-it-yourself painting kit comprising a stamped canvas, brushes, and 90 paint tins in plexiglass designed to make a 'dot' painting. Part of the exhibition was binned by a gallery cleaner who mistook it for trash.
 The Dream, (2008). a simulated unicorn in a tank of formaldehyde solution.
 Spin Drawing for Women's Equality (2016), auctioned as a fundraiser for the Women's Equality Party.
 Butterfly Rainbow (2020)

Personal life
Between 1992 and 2012, Hirst lived with his American girlfriend, Maia Norman, with whom he has three sons, born 1995, 2000 and 2005.

Since becoming a father, Hirst has spent most of his time at his remote farmhouse near Combe Martin in Devon. Hirst and Norman were never married, although Hirst had referred to Norman as his "common-law wife".

Hirst has admitted serious drug and alcohol problems during a ten-year period from the early 1990s: "I started taking cocaine and drink... I turned into a babbling fucking wreck." During this time he was known for his wild behaviour and eccentric acts including, for example, putting a cigarette in the end of his penis in front of journalists.

He is a friend of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and 7-time World Snooker Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Charitable work
Hirst is a supporter of the indigenous rights organisation, Survival International. In September 2008, Hirst donated the work, Beautiful Love Survival, at the Sotheby's London sale, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, to raise money for this organisation. Later, he also contributed his writing to the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in October 2009, in support of Survival. The book explores the existence of, and threats to, indigenous cultures around the world.

In 2016 he donated artworks for the secret auction of Art on a Postcard, a charity supporting the fight against Hepatitis C.

NFTs
In July 2021 Hirst announced his first NFT project, named "The Currency: it consisted of 10,000 unique hand-painted dot-covered works on paper, each one corresponding to a non-fungible token. Two months later, the project revenued a total of $25,000,000. Hirst instructed those who bought pieces from his latest collection to choose either the physical artwork or the NFT representing it. Buyers were informed that corresponding artworks for the non-exchanged NFTs would be destroyed, with the first 1,000 artworks being burned on October 11, 2022. He streamed the burning of his physical pieces on Instagram live from his London gallery and is set to burn thousands more of his artwork to complete the transformation of the selected artworks so they can exist solely as NFTs. It has been estimated the works being burned are collectively worth almost £10 million.

See also
 Charles Saatchi
 Stuckist
 John LeKay
 Young British Artists

References

Further reading

External links

 Official Damien Hirst Website
 Damien Hirst's Pharmacy on Tate interactive site
 Damien Hirst at Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, September 2011.
 Damien Hirst. Retrospective at Tate Modern, London / UK, Video Damien Hirst. Retrospective at Tate Modern, London, 2012

1965 births
Living people
20th-century English painters
21st-century English painters
21st-century male artists
Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
Alumni of Leeds Arts University
Artists from Bristol
Artists from Leeds
British conceptual artists
English contemporary artists
English curators
English male painters
English mixed media artists
English people of Irish descent
English restaurateurs
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Turner Prize winners
Young British Artists
BRIT Award trophy designers

Damien Hirst


Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt (21 July 1854 – 18 August 1905) was a Finnish-Swedish painter noted for his naturalistic style and Realist approach to art. He lived in the Grand Duchy of Finland and made Finnish culture visible abroad, before Finland gained full independence. He was considered the greatest Finnish artist of the second half of 19th - the first half of 20th centuries, and one of the most prominent contributors to the Golden Age of Finnish Art.

Biography

Early life
Edelfelt was born 1854 in Porvoo, son of the Swedish architect Carl Albert Edelfelt (1818–1869), who had lived in Finland since his early youth, and Alexandra Edelfeldt, born Alexandra Brandt 1833–1901). His father died when he was still young, and his mother had to raise him and his younger siblings alone compounded by financial difficulties. He was very close with his mother throughout his life.

He began his formal studies of art in 1869 at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Society in Helsinki  and continued as a student of Adolf von Becker (1871–73). He then received a scholarship from the Finnish government to study history painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied under Nicaise de Keyser for several months in 1873-74, and won an award for excellence for his painting of Alexander the Great on his deathbed. He also began a long-lasting friendship with the Belgian artist Émile Claus.

Arrival in Paris – History Painting
In the autumn of 1874, at the age of nineteen, following the advice of his teacher Adolf von Becker, he moved to Paris and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He shared a small studio with a Finnish friend at 24 Rue Bonaparte. Under the instruction of the French painter Jean-Léon Gerome he continued to focus on history painting, particularly scenes of the long series of wars involving the Russians, Swedes and Finns.

After a year in Paris he returned to Helsinki, but came back to Paris in 1876, taking a studio at 81 boulevard du Montparnasse. He became friends with the painter Jules Bastien-Lepage, who introduced him the techniques of painting in open air. His major work of this time was Duke Charles IX of Sweden insulting the corpse of his enemy Klaus Fleming (1878). This work which blended the formal academic style with elements of careful realism, such as the dust on the boots. This painting did not cause a stir in Paris, but it enjoyed a great success in Finland; it was purchased by the Finnish Society of Fine Arts.

In 1879 he had his first success at the Paris Salon, with a history painting entitled The Burnt Village - a scene from the Finnish peasant revolt of 1596. The French critics praised the realism of the figures, but Edelfelt noticed the incongruity between the historical figures and the realistic outdoor setting. He wrote, "The problem right with historic subjects is that one cannot render the aspect of reality as in scenes that you have seen yourself."  With that judgement, he almost entirely abandoned history painting and concentrated on painting in the open air.

He went back to Finland for a time, then returned to Paris in 1881 and rented a new studio at 147 avenue des Villiers.

Impressionism and Painting in Open Air
In the early 1880s, Edelfelt began to adapt some of the characteristics of the new Impressionist movement; natural settings, particularly parks and gardens and the seashore;  intimate domestic settings; the play of light on the figures; and rapid execution, to capture the sensation of the moment. At the same time he never became entirely an impressionist, following his realist training to concentrate on precise details and using a broad and complex palette of colors.

Throughout the 1880s, Edelfelt continued to paint outdoor scenes of life in Paris, displaying his talent for capturing the effects of light, combined with his precision of details. During the same period he created wide variety of intimate domestic scenes, capturing the details of Parisian life.

Portrait of Louis Pasteur
In 1880 Edelfelt became a friend of Jean-Baptiste Pasteur, the son of the famous chemist Louis Pasteur, who introduced him to Pasteur the following year. He became a close friend of family, and painted many of their portraits over the following years. Pasteur had a good sense of public relations, and participated with Edelfelt in the planning of his own portrait.

Edelfeld's portrait of Pasteur in his laboratory, painted in 1885, had a great success at the Paris Salon of 1886, and became one of the most familiar images of the scientist. It gained the painter the award of the Legion of Honor when he was only thirty-five years old.

Russian Imperial commissions
Edelfelt began by painting portraits of his family and relatives, but his skills very quickly brought him a large clientele. In 1881 he visited Saint Petersburg, where the Russian Academy had awarded him an honorary membership in 1878. The Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, brother of the Russian Emperor, commissioned him to make portraits of his children. This led to another commission to paint the children of Czar Alexander III of Russia. In 1896 he returned to Russia to make a portrait of Czar Nicholas II.

In February, 1899, Czar Nicholas II issued a decree suppressing the political liberties of the Finns. Edelfelt mobilised a network of Finnish artists and cultural figures with a petition to the Russian government, called "Pro Finlandia", seeking recognition of the independence of the arts in Finland. He also took on the role of a cultural diplomat as the commissioner of the Finnish participation in the Paris Exposition Universelle (1900).

The Finnish Countryside
Edelfelt spent his summers in Finland exploring and painting. While his French paintings were almost all of Paris scenes, his paintings in Finland captured the scenery, people and particular light of the Finnish countryside. He presented them regularly at the Paris Salon. For his painting of an outdoor church service on the coast at Haikko, near Porvoo, he made a series of oil sketches, to capture exactly the tonalities of the water and the sky.

In 1880 his family bought a summer house at the coastal manor of Haikko, in the southwest part the country, and he installed a studio there in 1883. He frequently used his family and local residents as models. His pictures have a spontaneity and naturalness resulting from his careful observation and empathy for the subjects.

Portrait painting
Edelfelt very early in his career became a master of portrait painting, which provided the major part of his income. "Portraits for the soup, paintings for the glory", he wrote in 1878, citing the Belgian artist Antoine Wiertz.  From 1880 onwards, he participated in the Paris Salon, and portraits were his major source of income.

Each portrait he painted involved a lengthy process. He had a series of preparatory drawings with pencil and crayon, then with pastel colors, before making the final oil painting. Besides close attention to the expression of the model and the pose, he paid close attention to the surroundings of the subject, including books, pets or objects that could illuminate the personality of the subject.

While he painted portraits of influential and famous people such as Pasteur, many of his best portraits are not posed, but depict Finnish men and women in natural settings, in village life or at sea.

Espagnolisme, Runeberg and religious art
In April and May 1881, Edelfelt spent five weeks in Spain where he learned many new aspects of art and studied the phenomenon called espagnolisme, which is the impact that Spanish influences had on France starting from the 1830s. In Spain, Edelfelt also gained a deeper grasp of Gypsy culture and Orientalism which had always interested him. His most important picture from Granada is Gitana Dancing I, a genre portrait of a dancing Gypsy girl.

In 1890s he became interested in illustrating poetry. Edelfelt admired the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, who was a friend of the family. The company of Runeberg had a lasting impact on Edelfelt, who from time to time turned to scenes from Finnish history in his paintings. Edelfelt went on to illustrate Runeberg's epic poem The Tales of Ensign Stål.

Edelfelt also later dabbled in religious painting, and in his 1890 Christ and Mary Magdalene he set a biblical scene in the Finnish landscape, influenced by Kanteletar.

Personal life

He sent his mother hundreds of letters when he was away. In Paris, he shared a studio with the American Julian Alden Weir, who introduced him to John Singer Sargent. He had romantic relationships with numerous women, including Antonia Bonjean and Virginie in Paris. He married Baroness Anna Elise "Ellan" de la Chapelle in 1888, and the same year they had one child, Erik. They had known each other since childhood, but their marriage did not have a lot of warmth. The death of his mother in 1901 affected him greatly.

He died abruptly from heart failure in 1905 at the age of fifty-one. His funeral was attended by a large number of notable Finns. His son Erik died not long afterwards in 1910.

Legacy

In 2013, Boys Playing on the Shore (1884) was selected by Nordic Moneta as Finland's most significant painting.

In Finland, he was one of the founders of the Realist art movement. He influenced several younger Finnish painters and helped fellow Finnish artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Gunnar Berndtson to make their breakthrough in Paris.  Among his students was Léon Bakst. Edelfelt was one of the first Finnish artists to achieve international fame. Albert Edelfelt is considered one of the most notable artists of the Golden Age of Finnish Art. A museum under his name operates in Porvoo. He was selected as the main motif on a Finnish commemorative coin celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth, the €100 Albert Edelfelt and painting commemorative coin, minted in 2004. The reverse shows an embossed face of the artist.

See also

Golden Age of Finnish Art
Art in Finland

Bibliography
Pommereau, Claude (Chief Editor), "Albert Edelfelt – Lumières de Finlande" (in French), February 2022, BeauxArts & Cie Editions. ISBN 979-1-02040-725-2.
Pennonen, Anne-Maria & Hanne Selkokari (Chief Editors), "Albert Edelfelt", 2023, Finnish National Gallery/Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki. ISBN 978-952-7371-54-1.

References

External links

  Albert Edelfelt Studio Museum (Artist's Studio Museum Network)

1854 births
1905 deaths
People from Porvoo
People from Uusimaa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland)
Swedish-speaking Finns
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
Painters from the Russian Empire
Artists from the Grand Duchy of Finland
19th-century Finnish painters
Finnish male painters
Burials at Hietaniemi Cemetery
19th-century Finnish male artists

Albert Edelfelt


The M4 Sherman was a American medium tank that served during WWII and the Korean War. The early ones had an underpowered 75 mm gun that couldn't penetrate the thick armor of the German tanks it was facing. Only the large numbers helped to knock out the heavily armored German Tigers. The early ones also had relatively thin armor that was easily penetrated by the 8.8 cm KwK 36, the anti-tank gun the Germans had.

The list of variants includes, but is not limited too:

 The Sherman Firefly, a British variant with a QF-17 pounder gun (the "pounder" designation of 17 means it shoots 17-pound shells)
 The M4A1
 The M4A2
 The M4A3
 The M4A4
 The M4A5
 The M4A6
 and the Easy eight and the Jumbo, which were actually subvariants of the M4A3, with both looking similar yet the Easy eight being outfitted for the 76mm gun while the Sherman Jumbo with the conventional 75mm but thicker armour.

Tanks

M4 Sherman


Mega Turrican is a run and gun video game, developed by Factor 5 in 1993 and marketed by Data East in 1994. Part of the Turrican series, it was designed for the Mega Drive/Genesis, and later followed by an Amiga port converted by Kaiko and Neon Studios under the title of Turrican 3: Payment Day. Despite not being the original, the Amiga version was the one that was first commercially released in 1993, published by Rainbow Arts in Germany and Renegade in the rest of Europe. The Mega Drive version did not have a publisher and stayed unreleased from spring 1993 until 1994, when Data East took over its worldwide distribution. Data East itself released the game in North America, and contracted Sony Imagesoft for the game's distribution in Europe.

The Mega Drive version of the game was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console service in Europe and Australia on March 22, 2008 and on April 14, 2008 in North America. It was also released once again for the Mega Drive/Genesis in 2022 as Mega Turrican: Director's Cut, an aftermarket cartridge containing the original game, a new variant with some restored content and a score attack level.

Plot
Time has passed since humankind last heard of The Machine. Bren McGuire is on a United Planets Freedom Forces mission when suddenly he sees his worst nightmares come true again. Years ago, he was the only survivor of the starship Avalon 1 when The Machine took out his comrades in an attempt to take over the galaxy. Back then, Bren sought revenge against his enemy and finally destroyed him in the planet of Landorin. Nobody expected a return of The Machine, but now, after many people enjoyed freedom and peace in the galaxy, the dark forces under his command are starting to assemble again.

In a sweep of terror, The Machine destroys dozens of planets and enslaves hundreds of peaceful people. The old memories arise again when Bren hears the last message of a young and beautiful girl. Desperately she cries for help, as her planet is being taken over by the soldiers of The Machine. As Bren receives the message, he slips into his Turrican assault suit and swears final revenge.

Once again, Bren McGuire, now the leader of the Freedom Forces, is the only hope in a crucial mission to definitely destroy the grasp of evil represented by The Machine. A lone warrior against the evil hordes of The Machine, Bren jumps out of his ship to face the ultimate challenge.

Gameplay
The player has to complete numerous large levels always searching for secrets to pick up and enemies to shoot. To do this, the player can pick up three different, upgradeable shots: a "Multiple" spread gun, a more powerful, single-direction "Laser" and a "Rebound", which fires shots directly up and down that travel along floors and ceilings, while the main forward-firing shot is weaker. He can also go into wheel-mode by pressing jump while holding down on the D-Pad (as long as the player has enough special energy) and use a rope. In wheel-mode, the player is nearly invincible and can lay mines or explore previously unreachable areas, a mechanic similar to the "Morph Ball" from the Metroid series and the "Spin Dash" from the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

The player can also use a grappling hook for the first time in the Turrican series.

Development
The German magazine "Amiga Games" published a complete 6-part development diary (The long way from Turrican II to Turrican III) in 1992.<ref name=LongWay>{{cite web|url=http://www.nemmelheim.de/turrican/files/turrican-3-development-diary.php |title=The long way from Turrican II to Turrican III (German) |publisher=Amiga Games|date=1992 |accessdate=2012-03-06}}</ref> The German magazine "Power Play" published an article about the development of Turrican 3 in 1993.

Factor 5 began the work on Turrican III for the Amiga right after Turrican II was released in 1991. They had a working demo that already had some features from the final game. However, around this time, the Amiga market was already in decline and together with Rainbow Arts, it was decided to develop the game for the Sega Mega Drive instead. The game was completely redesigned for the console and it was co-developed by Factor 5 and members of Kaiko. Development of what was already known as Mega Turrican was finished in spring 1993, but Factor 5 was still lacking a publishing agreement for the title at this point, since Rainbow Arts did not perform direct operations on the console business. Factor 5 had then to shift efforts into presenting the game to various Mega Drive/Genesis publishers in hopes they could sign a definite deal, a process that would end a whole year after when Data East agreed with Factor 5 into publishing Mega Turrican in 1994.

Not long after development of Mega Turrican for the Mega Drive was finished, Kaiko approached Rainbow Arts and asked to develop their own version of a third Turrican game for the Amiga. However, development on this version did not get very far and was stopped after a short time. Efforts on a third Amiga version were once again restarted, this time as a conversion of Mega Turrican, which was still an unpublished title on the Mega Drive/Genesis. The programming was done by Peter Thierolf of Neon Studios, formerly of Kaiko (the company was falling apart at the time). This port for the Amiga, rebranded as Turrican 3 (replacing the Roman numerals that the previous Factor 5 project had assigned), was released in Europe in Autumn 1993 by Rainbow Arts and Renegade Software, even before the original version for the Mega Drive/Genesis could find a publishing company for any region.

The main differences between the Mega Drive and Amiga versions are graphics and sound. Notably, the graphical department of the original Mega Drive version was compromised in the porting process to the Amiga, resulting in slight loss of color, some missing backgrounds, and a general lacking of animations and graphical effects. The music and sound effects were ported to the Amiga sound capabilities with readjustments in various track compositions being made in the process. Not many changes, additions, or cuts were done in gameplay and level design aside from a secret level in the initial world of Mega Turrican becoming a regular level in Turrican 3 and if the user on the Amiga uses a one-button joystick/pad, they have to restore the traditional jumping method back to the up direction and having to hold the fire button in order to use the grappling hook.

In general terms and aside from specific version differences, the game features smaller levels compared to the original Amiga Turrican games, but compensates these with many new effects and graphical improvements, and a major focus on shooting action. The lightning whip from the first two games is gone and is replaced by a physics-driven grappling hook used to reach higher places in a similar fashion to other games like Bionic Commando.

Versions were considered by Rainbow Arts for PC MS-DOS and Acorn Archimedes with a tentative release date of summer 1994, but neither of them were ever released.

Unused graphics
By inspecting the video RAM while playing the first level, it is possible to find sprites depicting both Sonic and Mario in a fashion which is reminiscent of Han Solo being frozen in carbonite, though those sprites are never used in the original game. They were restored for the Mega Turrican: Director's Cut'' release.

Reception

In 2017, Gamesradar ranked Mega Turrican 36th on their "Best Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games of all time."

References

1993 video games
Amiga games
Cancelled DOS games
Factor 5 games
Kaiko games
Neon Studios games
Rainbow Arts games
Run and gun games
Science fiction video games
Sega Genesis games
Side-scrolling video games
Single-player video games
Turrican
Video game sequels
Video games developed in Germany
Video games scored by Chris Huelsbeck
Video games set in the 31st century
Virtual Console games

Mega Turrican