Name: To A Stranger
Brand: Damien Hirst
Rating: 5 (233 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of Damien Hirst’s To A Stranger (signed) is estimated to be worth between £9,500 and £14,000. This mixed media artwork, created in 2014, has shown consistent value growth, with an average annual growth rate of 14%. This is a rare artwork with an auction history of two total sales since its entry to the market in September 2018. In the past five years, the hammer price has varied from £7,650 in September 2018 to its current value. The edition size of this piece is limited to 55.

Auction Date

Auction House

Location

Hammer Price

Return to Seller

Buyer Paid

March 2024

Christie's London

United Kingdom

September 2018

Sotheby's London

United Kingdom

Meaning & Analysis

To A Stranger is a signed mixed media print from Damien Hirst’s Love Poems series from 2015. The print shows four butterflies rendered in orange, blue, purple and yellow set against a stark black backdrop. Each butterfly is shown in almost photographic detail but abstracted by their bright colouring.

Hirst has obsessively depicted the butterfly motif throughout his artistic oeuvre. Each butterfly is born with a unique pattern and mimics the individuality that frames much of human life. The butterfly motif appears both in printed editions as well as in installations where visitors are situated in a room of live butterflies.

Love Poems is another series by Hirst that centres on the theme of love. Speaking of his interest in the topic of love, Hirst has explained, “Love is a beautiful thing, and I see it as a small antidote to the horrors of the world.” Hirst has used the butterfly as a reflection of life throughout his artistic oeuvre and is fascinated by the appearance of life that the insect retains in death. The Love Poems series is representative of the way that Hirst puts themes of morality, life, love, faith and aesthetics into dialogue with one another to create spectacular and aphoristic images.