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I Love You

Fourteen hearts, each holding a single butterfly, make up the 2015 Valentine's portfolio 'I Love You' that Damien Hirst released through Paul Stolper in London. Eight hearts are silkscreened in colour and six laid in gold leaf, and every 100 x 70 cm sheet of Somerset Satin paper was editioned in 14.

All I Love You Works By Damien Hirst (3)

Significance & Analysis

'I Love You' reduces Hirst's butterfly to its simplest meaning: a token of love. The prints were the centrepiece of a pop-up exhibition at Paul Stolper that ran over Valentine's Day 2015, from 9 to 21 February, and was given over entirely to the theme. Heart and butterfly The pairing goes back to the start of Hirst's career. In 'In and Out of Love' (1991), live butterflies hatched from canvases in a London gallery, lived out their short lives there and died, and the title tied the insect to love from the outset. Here the idea becomes an emblem: a flat heart with one butterfly at its centre, the wings rendered in photographic detail. Hirst has explained the motif's pull in three words: "everyone loves butterflies". Metal on paper The portfolio, issued as 'LOVE Gold', mixes printed colour with real metal. Every butterfly is foil-blocked, pressed onto the sheet from metallic foil in two colours, so the wings catch the light against the heart around them. Part of each surface is therefore metal on the paper rather than a printed image of it, which is why the prints change as the viewer moves. The same pop-up showed two heart-shaped pill sculptures, '♡YU 4 EVA', and 'Love Struck', a heart pierced by a crossbow bolt inside a sweet jar. At auction In July 2025 Chiswick Auctions in London sold 'I Love You (Gold and Black)', a gold-leaf heart numbered 9/14, for £17,010 with fees, the strongest price for the portfolio in five years. The estimate had been £10,000 to £15,000. Before and after The foil-blocked butterfly came from The Souls (2010), where Hirst printed single butterflies in foil on paper in many colourways. 'I Love You' set that butterfly inside a heart and added gold leaf. A second portfolio, 'LOVE Silver', followed in June 2015, and the heart and butterfly met again in 2020 in H7 - Rainbow Editions, where 'Butterfly Heart' builds the heart itself from rows of photographed wings.

Why Are The I Love You Prints Titled With Lists Of Colours?

Because the fourteen prints share one design, and their colours are the only thing that tells them apart. Each title lists the colours of that print in order, so 'gold leaf, black, turquoise' and 'white, black, fuchsia, cool gold' name a gold-leaf heart and a silkscreened one with their foils. 'Cool gold' and 'oriental gold' are two of the metallic foils.

How Many I Love You Prints Were Made?

Each of the 14 designs was issued in an edition of 14, so the 'LOVE Gold' portfolio accounts for 196 numbered prints. Every sheet measures 100 x 70 cm, on Somerset Satin 410gsm paper, and is signed and numbered by hand in pencil. Framed, the prints are usually about 113 x 83 cm.

What Is The Difference Between I Love You And LOVE Silver?

They are companion portfolios from the same year. 'I Love You' was issued as 'LOVE Gold' in February 2015; 'LOVE Silver', released that June, repeats its plan with new silkscreen colours and silver leaf in place of gold. A print whose title or surface includes silver leaf belongs to the later portfolio.