Damien Hirst, the poster boy for young British artists who rose to fame in London in the late 1980s, was one of the most notorious artists of his generation. He pushed the limits of fine art and refined taste with sculptures that included dead animals submerged in formaldehyde; countless spot paintings that appeared to be mass-produced and sold for millions of dollars; and the passionately kitschy For the Love of God (2007), a human skull studded with 8,601 diamonds. Through his installations, sculptures, drawings and paintings, Hirst explores themes including religion, death and desire. Since 1988, the artist has developed and curated Freeze, a groundbreaking exhibition of his work and that of his Goldsmiths College colleagues, and has been the subject of major exhibitions at the Tate Modern in London, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the National Museum in Amsterdam. 2008. In 2008, Hirst exhibited Beautiful Inside my Head Forever at an auction where he sold his work directly to the public, earning himself an estimated $200 million. His personal works have sold at auction for more than $10 million.