Memento
Damien Hirst's 2008 Memento series contains 13 etchings, each depicting one of his most crucial motifs: skulls, diamonds, and butterflies. Hirst’s simple composition – with the subject set centrally against a dark backdrop – and hyperreal rendering creates a visceral confrontation with themes of mortality, fragility, and beauty.
Damien Hirst Memento For sale
Memento Value (5 Years)
Damien Hirst's Memento series has historically shown more modest results compared with the artist’s wider oeuvre, with auction prices ranging from £1900 to £29330. Average annual growth has remained modest at -6.69%, with certain works seeing declines in value. Over 28 total auction appearances, average selling prices have held steady around £6335. This series appeals to collectors seeking accessible entry points into Damien Hirst’s print market.
Memento Market value
Auction Results
| Artwork | Auction Date | Auction House | Return to Seller | Hammer Price | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Memento 13 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 16 Apr 2025 | Christie's New York | £7,650 | £9,000 | £12,500 |
 Memento 4 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 23 Jul 2024 | Christie's New York | £10,625 | £12,500 | £17,000 |
 Memento 6 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 23 Jul 2024 | Christie's New York | £8,075 | £9,500 | £12,500 |
 Memento 7 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 3 Jul 2014 | Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, Bloomsbury House | £2,040 | £2,400 | £3,100 |
 Memento 12 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 3 Jul 2014 | Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, Bloomsbury House | £2,040 | £2,400 | £3,100 |
 Memento 9 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 23 May 2012 | Neumeister | £2,423 | £2,850 | £3,450 |
 Memento 11 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 21 Sept 2011 | Christie's London | £2,253 | £2,650 | £3,500 |
 Memento 8 Damien Hirst Signed Print | 5 Feb 2011 | Mainichi Auction, Tokyo | £1,658 | £1,950 | £2,300 |
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Meaning & Analysis
Created in 2008, Memento is a series of 13 etchings by Hirst, depicting the most infamous of his iconography: the skull. The subject matter of the Memento series is representative of Hirst’s most celebrated iconography: the skull, the diamond and the butterfly. The series comprises six prints of butterflies, six of skulls and one of a diamond skull, each image sharing the same composition and set against a dark backdrop.
Hirst’s Memento series shores up the duality that structures the core of human experience, depicting objects that represent the constant psychic tussle between life and death, beauty and decay, desire and fear, love and loss. Each print in the series shows a physical manifestation of this set of beliefs and ideas, depicted in meticulous detail so as to emphasise a visceral confrontation with the viewer.
Depicted in beautifully rich detail, the butterflies in the centre of the first four compositions are striking in their colouring and its mimetic quality. Hirst’s concern with depicting his chosen subject matter in photographic detail stems from his work on ‘fact’ painting beginning in 2000. The artist’s aim with such works was to attempt to reproduce photographs in the traditional medium of oil on canvas. The realistic image of the butterfly plays with Hirst’s concern around facts and truth that photographs are assumed to depict.
Much like the butterflies in this series, the skulls that Hirst depicts are each unique and represent human mortality in a clinical way, providing the viewer with a final image of death, the remains of a human face. Fascinated by death as a subject for artistic investigation, Hirst does not represent decay or fear of death, but instead transforms this image of mortality into an aestheticised symbol. Set in dialogue with the butterflies in the first half of the Memento series, the skulls in the second half of the series stand in for the transitory nature of life and resurrection.
