07/22/2026
In 1991, Charles Saatchi commissioned Damien Hirst to make an artwork. He gave him £50,000. Hirst spent £6,000 of it on a 14-foot tiger shark, suspended it in a tank of formaldehyde, and called it The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.
The art establishment said it wasn’t real art. Critics called it a stunt. Then in 2004, Saatchi sold it to hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen for an estimated $8 million.
Then the shark started rotting. The formaldehyde clouded. The skin sagged. Hirst caught a new shark and remade the piece entirely. Whether it is still the same artwork is a question nobody has cleanly answered.
In 2008, Hirst sold an entire body of new work directly through Sotheby’s, bypassing the gallery system completely. £111 million in a single night. The debate about whether his work is art or spectacle made him the richest artist in the UK.
That debate was always the point.
