Damien Hirst The Last Supper For Sale

The Last Supper is a series of thirteen large screenprints created by the artist in 1999. In the series, Hirst conflates the language of religion, traditional British foods and pharmaceutical drugs to challenge the common faith people have in medicine. Hirst’s transfixion with medicine led to a full-scale installation of a pharmacy in 1992 at the Cohen Gallery. This interest had originated from childhood memory of going to the chemist with his mother, and finding it strange that she had faith in medicine, but none in art: “I was having difficulty convincing the people around me that it was worth believing in. And then I noticed that they were believing in medicine in exactly the same way that I wanted them to believe in art”. For Hirst, this unshakeable belief in modern medicine and the primacy of science is comparable to religion, two opposite poles of the same dogma. This concern is continued on in the biblical allusion of The Last Supper, which poses ‘the question of whether pharmaceuticals.. May have become not only the salvation in which we put our faith, but our daily bread’. (Press release, National Gallery of Art). These distinct screenprints are titled after traditional British foods: Beans and Chips, Chicken, Corned Beef, Cornish Pastry, Dumpling, Liver, Bacon and Onions, Meatballs, Mushroom, Omelette, Salad, Sandwich, Sausages and Steak & Kidney.

Appropriating pharmaceutical packaging, each screenprint cleverly employs minimalist blocks of colours, typeface and branding to parody the clinical aesthetic. They vary from pristine white and pastel (Sausages) to the bold Modernist style of Mushroom. The visual effect is eerily recognisable in its formula, which is never overly decorative - Hirst said of medicine packaging: ‘Minimalism implies confidence.’ Emphasising the mass production and commercialisation of the industry, Hirst humorously reworks his own name as a logo – HirstDamien, Damien and Damien & Hirst that recall big pharmaceutical companies. These logos, trademarks and scientific information (such as units of measurements and ingredients) can be seen as Hirst’s rendering of a kind of ‘ready-made’ art or making art out of the everyday, wavering between high art and low art.

At the centre of The Last Supper is a preoccupation with the human condition and what seems to be the striving for science to ultimately escape it. Pharmaceutical drugs are used ostensibly to cure symptoms and alleviate pain, but these also have less favourable side effects. Though seemingly disconnected, the British common foods titled on the screenprints are similarly innocuous at first, but bad for us in other ways, having high amounts of chemicals and saturated fats. Hirst forces us to relook at, and even find absurdity in the ordinary, much like his predecessor Andy Warhol, who screenprinted humble household objects of mass consumerism. More explicitly opinionated than Warhol, though, Hirst is definitive about the lie that pharmacy tries to sell us: ‘We all die, so this kind of big happy, smiling, minimal, colourful, confident facade that medicine and drug companies put up is not flawless – your body lets you down but people want to believe in some kind of immortality.’ (Interview with Gordon Burn).

Buy The Last Supper by Damien Hirst

Andipa Editions, as part of Andipa, have been at the forefront of the Hirst market for over 20 years. To enquire about buying a Last Supper print by Damien Hirst, contact us via sales@andipa.com or on +44 (0) 20 7589 2371.

Sell The Last Supper by Damien Hirst

With a global network of active buyers, Andipa Editions are the place to sell your Damien Hirst The Last Supper print. Straight-forward and stress-free, we manage the process on your behalf and help to maximise your return. For a complimentary valuation of your Last Supper print, contact us via sales@andipa.com or on +44 (0) 20 7589 2371. Explore our collection of Damien Hirst original prints for sale.