Damien Hirst H15-1 Raphael For Sale

About this work

H15-1 Raphael is a giclée print on archival fine art paper created by Damien Hirst in 2021, part of the H15 Archangels series. The print measures 20½ by 56¾ inches — a panoramic, horizontal format that accommodates Hirst's quadriptych structure, presenting four panels of his celebrated Cherry Blossoms paintings in sequence. Named after the archangel Raphael — associated in tradition with healing, beauty, and the guiding of travelers — the work is one of four in the series, each named for one of the archangels of the Western tradition. The Cherry Blossoms paintings, from which the Archangels prints are derived, represent one of Hirst's most lyrical and visually compelling bodies of work. Against dark grounds, Hirst builds cascading masses of paint-loaded marks that replicate the abundant, fleeting beauty of cherry blossom. The series engages with ideas of transience and impermanence — the poignancy of beauty that cannot last — through Hirst's characteristically exuberant and gestural visual language. In the Raphael print, the quadriptych format allows four distinct compositional moments to be held in dialogue, creating a panoramic meditation on bloom and the fragility of the beautiful. Damien Hirst is one of the most significant and internationally recognized artists of the contemporary period. His Cherry Blossoms series, exhibited to considerable critical and public attention, represents a major development in his engagement with the themes of life, beauty, and mortality that have animated his practice from its earliest stages. The Archangels prints, derived from the Cherry Blossoms quadriptychs, provide an important and accessible entry into this significant body of work. H15-1 Raphael is a work of considerable visual beauty and conceptual richness, appropriate to the most discerning private and institutional collections.