Damien Hirst is an English artist and the most prominent of the group that has been dubbed "Young British Artists" (or YBAs). He dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s and is internationally renowned.

Death is a central theme in his work. He is best known for his Natural History series, in which dead animals (such as a shark, a sheep or a cow) are preserved, sometimes cut-up, in formaldehyde. His iconic work is The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a 14-foot tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a vitrine. Its sale in 2004 made him the second most expensive living artist after Jasper Johns. In June 2007, Hirst became the most expensive living artist with the sale of a medicine chest, Lullaby Spring, for £9.65 million at Sotheby's in London.

He is also known for "spin paintings," made on a spinning circular surface, and "spot paintings," which are rows of randomly-coloured circles; these have been imitated in commercial graphics.
During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head