News from the art world

Hirst’s Government handouts By some estimates, Damien Hirst is “the world’s richest artist”, said Richard Eden in the Daily Mail. He has an estimated fortune of around £300m, owns a 14-bedroom house in Regent’s Park, and has been known to give seats on private jets to his pet bulldog. “None of that, however, deterred him from turning to the hard-pressed taxpayer during the pandemic.” According to the accounts for his company, Science (UK), it claimed £1.31m in furlough payments from the Covid job-retention scheme in 2020 – a year in which it turned over a total of £18.2m. The business also received a £15m business-interruption loan from the Government. Nevertheless, said Anny Shaw in The Art Newspaper, Hirst laid off 63 studio employees in October 2020, after a planned retrospective of…

You're reading a preview of

The Week United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, 1377

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.