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Veils (H4)

'H4 - Veils' is Damien Hirst's set of eight HENI giclée prints on aluminium, released in 2018 and 2020 after his 'Veil Paintings'. Each Diasec-mounted panel measures 92 x 126 cm, captures a passage of the paintings' dense, dotted impasto, and was issued in an edition of 75 plus five artist's proofs.

All Veils (H4) Works By Damien Hirst (8)

Significance & Analysis

'H4 - Veils' carried Hirst's return to the brush into print. After the sculptural spectacle of 'Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable' in Venice in 2017, he went back to painting in the studio, and the 'Veil Paintings' were the result.

The paintings behind the prints

The canvases, dated 2017, were first shown at Gagosian in Beverly Hills from March to April 2018. They grew out of the 'Visual Candy' paintings Hirst made in the mid-1990s, layering short brushstrokes and heavy dabs of paint across the whole surface, with clear debts to Seurat's Pointillism and to Bonnard. Hirst called the palette "sweet shop colours and the colours of fruit and flowers". He described a veil as a barrier you can look at and pass through, solid yet invisible.

Each print is a close-up of a painting rather than the whole canvas. High-resolution photography records the ridges and splashes of the impasto, and the Diasec face-mount keeps that detail sharp, though the panel itself is flat.

Two releases

The first four prints, 'Sans Souci', 'Andromeda', 'Garden of Dreams' and 'Cannizaro', came out in 2018. HENI added 'Nong Nooch', 'Kew', 'Ryoanji' and 'Keukenhof' in November 2020, sold by application through HENI Leviathan. From that second release, $100,000 went to the Fondation Beyeler in Basel and another $100,000 to the Serpentine in London.

Results

The two halves trade well as groups of four. At a Phillips London online sale of Hirst's work in October 2024, H4-1 to H4-4 made £27,940 with fees and H4-5 to H4-8 made £22,860. In the same sale 'Sans Souci' sold on its own for £7,620.

Before and after

In HENI's numbered sequence the Veils sit between H3 - Colour Charts and H5 - Colour Space. All three come from Hirst's paintings about colour, and the Veils are the loosest of them: elsewhere his colours stay in charts or discrete spots, while here they dissolve into brushwork. Hirst did not leave that heavy paint behind. It returned in the 'Cherry Blossoms' of 2018 to 2020, the paintings first issued as prints in H8 - Fruitful And Forever.

Why Are Some H4 - Veils Prints Dated 2018 And Others 2020?

Because the eight were issued in two stages. The official date for every print is 2018, but H4-5 to H4-8 (Nong Nooch, Kew, Ryoanji and Keukenhof) are often catalogued for resale as 2020, the year they were sold. Both dates describe the same editions: format, size and edition structure are identical across all eight.

Where Is The Signature On An H4 - Veils Print?

On the back. Each panel is signed by Hirst and numbered on a label fixed to the reverse, and nothing is written on the image itself. The number should read out of 75, or the label should mark the print as one of the five artist's proofs.

Can You Buy H4 - Veils As A Set?

Yes. Sets usually follow the two releases, so H4-1 to H4-4 and H4-5 to H4-8 are offered as separate groups of four. A complete set of all eight is rarer, because it has to be assembled from both releases.

What Are The H4 - Veils Titles Named After?

Each title is the name of a well-known garden: Sans Souci in Potsdam, Andromeda in Barbados, the Garden of Dreams in Kathmandu, Cannizaro in Wimbledon, Nong Nooch in Thailand, Kew in London, Ryoanji in Kyoto and Keukenhof in the Netherlands. They range from palace grounds and botanic gardens to a Zen rock garden and a spring bulb park.