The first-ever museum exhibition of internationally acclaimed artist Damien Hirst’s drawings are in view in Vienna at Albertina Modern until 12th October 2025. Damien Hirst is one of the most well known artists working today however his drawings are less well known.
Beginning with early sketches from the 1980s, the show reveals the artist’s draftsmanship not as a secondary exercise but as a vital part of his practice—an arena where ideas are tested, revisited, and sometimes allowed to stand alone as finished works.
What emerges is a portrait of Hirst’s conceptual approach: drawing as blueprint, as autonomous gesture, and as retrospective commentary. For many of his most iconic series, the sketch is not a footnote but an equal partner to the final work, carrying the same weight of thought and invention.
A standout moment is the selection from Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable. Here, the drawings borrow the visual codes of archaeological illustration and classical study, underscoring the project’s playful collapse of fact and fiction. Seen on paper, the myth-making feels even sharper—an inquiry into how images create belief as much as beauty.
The exhibition also revives Making Beautiful Drawings, first devised in 1994. This interactive installation features Hirst’s custom-built spin machine, a whirring disc that splashes colour into radiant patterns. Visitors are invited to try it themselves, extending the work’s original spirit of chance and spectacle. Nearby, an array of Spin Drawings underscores Hirst’s fascination with repetition and the push-pull between control and accident.
The drawings also map directly onto Hirst’s most recognisable works. Spot grids on paper prefigure the endless variations of the Spot Paintings, testing colour and rhythm with an intimacy the canvases later amplify. Sketches for vitrines such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and Away from the Flock trace how scale, stillness, and mortality were first staged on paper before shark, lamb, and formaldehyde took centre stage. Seen here, drawing emerges not as rehearsal but as the first arena where Hirst’s most unsettling ideas took form.
Sculptures from his celebrated Natural History series and further works from Treasures broaden the scope, situating drawing within the wider architecture of Hirst’s practice. The juxtaposition makes clear that for Hirst, paper is not a minor medium but a conceptual engine driving everything else.
Accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue, this exhibition reframes Damien Hirst through the lens of drawing—less as preparatory sketching, more as a form of thinking in its own right. The result is a show that sharpens our view of an artist still testing the line between experiment and monument.
Damien Hirst, Drawings – 8th October 2025
Albertina Modern
