Valium

A spot painting you could buy online

In the summer of 2000 Hirst released three editions with a London online gallery and publisher: Valium, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) and Opium. All three were drawn from his Pharmaceutical spot paintings, the grids of evenly spaced colored circles he had been painting since 1986.

Valium was the largest of the three and shared the biggest edition, 500 impressions; LSD was made in 300 and Opium, a much smaller sheet, in 500. Each Valium is signed by Hirst on the front, at lower right, and numbered on the back.

The publisher describes Valium as different from the other two: instead of a plain grid, its colored dots spin outward from the center, a pattern it links to the hallucinatory effect of the drugs in the titles.

Hirst and the drug catalog

Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965 and raised in Leeds. While a student at Goldsmiths College in London he staged the 1988 exhibition Freeze, which launched the group that became known as the Young British Artists. Two of his spot paintings were applied directly to the wall in that show. He won the Turner Prize in 1995.

The spot paintings got their names from a catalog of laboratory chemicals published by the supplier Sigma-Aldrich, which Hirst came across while working on his medicine cabinet sculptures. He chose drug names for the three 2000 editions because, in the publisher's words, they would ring a bell with the public.

Few drug names ring louder than Valium. It is the brand name for diazepam, developed by Leo Sternbach at Hoffmann-La Roche, patented in 1959 and launched in 1963. From 1969 to 1982 it was the top-selling drug in the United States, with 2.3 billion tablets sold in 1978 alone.

Print, not paint: what the object is

Hirst's spot paintings are made by hand in glossy household paint. Valium reproduces that finish photographically. The publisher calls it a Lambda chromogenic print, and auction catalogs describe it as a Lambda or C-print on glossy Fujicolor paper. One dealer guide describes it instead as a screenprint on museum board; the publisher's and auction records do not support that, and the FLOAT record's description of it as a screenprint follows that guide.

The size is also given differently from source to source: 127 by 127 cm from the publisher, 1270 mm square for the full sheet in one London catalog, 121 by 121 cm in a 2024 New York-area catalog and 118 by 119 cm in a 2016 Chicago catalog. Framing and how a sheet is measured probably account for some of the spread.

To identify a genuine impression, look for Hirst's signature on the front, an edition number out of 500 on the back, and documentation from the publisher. The 2016 example sold with the publisher's certificate of authenticity.

Hirst in 2000

In 2000 Hirst was five years past the Turner Prize, and buying art online was new. The Nasdaq Composite, the index of the technology stocks behind the web boom, reached its all-time high of 5,048 on March 10 of that year. Valium was released that summer, sold through a website rather than a conventional gallery.

More than two decades later the publisher still counts the three 2000 editions among its most popular releases, and notes that they regularly appear at major auctions.

From website to auction room

Valium appeared at auction within a few years of release. In November 2005 an impression was offered in London with an estimate of £4,000 to £6,000. In June 2016 impression 180/500, which had passed through a Paris sale in December 2014, sold in Chicago for $10,000 against an estimate of $7,000 to $9,000.

The record came on February 14, 2024, when impression 121/500 sold for $21,420 with fees in a prints and multiples sale, beating an estimate of $12,000 to $18,000. Dealers treat the Pharmaceutical editions as the standard entry point for collecting Hirst's spots: the editions are large, but demand has kept prices rising.

The numbers

Medium

Lambda chromogenic (C-type) print on glossy Fuji paper; one dealer calls it a screenprint on museum board (conflict)

Dimensions

127 x 127 cm per the publisher; auction catalogs give 118 x 119 cm to 1270 mm square

Edition

500, signed on the front, numbered on the back

Companion editions (2000)

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), edition of 300; Opium, edition of 500

Current collection

Edition; impressions are in private hands

Timeline

1. 1959

   Diazepam, later sold as Valium, is patented by Hoffmann-La Roche.

2. 1963

   Valium goes on sale.

3. 1965

   Damien Hirst is born in Bristol, England.

4. 1986

   Hirst makes his first spot painting.

5. 1988

   Hirst stages Freeze in London, including two spot paintings applied to the wall.

6. 1995

   Hirst wins the Turner Prize.

7. 2000

   Valium, LSD and Opium are released in the summer as limited editions; Valium is printed in an edition of 500.

8. Nov 21, 2005

   An impression is offered at auction in London, estimate £4,000 to £6,000.

9. Jan 12, 2012

   A worldwide exhibition of Hirst's complete spot paintings opens in 11 locations.

10. 2013

    A catalogue raisonne of the spot paintings documents 1,365 works.

11. Dec 14, 2014

    Impression 180/500 sells at auction in Paris.

12. Jun 23, 2016

    Impression 180/500 sells for $10,000 at auction in Chicago.

13. Feb 14, 2024

    Impression 121/500 sets the auction record for Valium at $21,420.

The world in 2000

• Mar 10, 2000

  The Nasdaq Composite reaches an all-time high of 5,048 at the peak of the dot-com boom.

• Mar 26, 2000

  Vladimir Putin is elected president of Russia.

• Jun 26, 2000

  A draft of the human genome is announced.

• Jul 25, 2000

  An Air France Concorde crashes after takeoff from Paris, killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.

• Sep 15, 2000

  The Summer Olympics open in Sydney.

• Nov 2, 2000

  The first resident crew begins living aboard the International Space Station.

• Dec 12, 2000

  The U.S. Supreme Court halts the Florida recount in Bush v. Gore.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Valium is number 73 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (68 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Valium was the best-selling drug in the United States from 1969 to 1982, with 2.3 billion tablets sold in 1978.
• Hirst's spot titles come from a catalog of laboratory chemicals, not from a pharmacy shelf.
• Unlike the strict grids of most spot works, Valium's dots spin outward from the center.
• Although it looks like paint, Valium is a photographic print made to mimic the gloss of Hirst's house-paint canvases.
• The 2024 record of $21,420 more than doubled the $10,000 an impression brought in 2016.