Art world in a spin after €380 Hirst painting fetches €220,000
Tuesday March 04 2008
A PRIZED Damien Hirst painting sold for more than 500 times the modest €380 paid for it last year during a 10-minute bidding war at an art auction last night.
Two bidders battled it out over the phone along with two others in the auction room at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin.
But in the end, the painting titled 'Spin' went to an anonymous telephone bidder who sealed the bid at €220,000.
"It was pretty nerve wracking," said a spokeswoman for Black's Auction of Premier Irish and International Art.
"There was a good bit of frenzy and a huge crowd to see the painting," she said.
The painting, part of Hirst's 'Spin series' was guiding at €100,000-€150,000 and the bidding lived up to predictions that it would be fiercely contested.
Anonymous
The painting made headlines last summer when some of the country's foremost art dealers failed to spot it at an anonymous Co Monaghan art auction where it was sold with 41 works by unknown artists.
Hirst is a Turner Prize winner and probably the UK's most bankable artist.
Organiser of the Flatlake Arts and Literary Festival Kevin Allen, who is a film director and brother of actor Keith Allen, came up with the idea of offering Hirst's painting of concentric circles alongside anonymous work to see if experts could spot the quality item. They couldn't.
