Damien Hirst on the art of making money

DAMIEN Hirst, the artist who has made a career as much out of his art as the controversy that surrounds it, has claimed money is a tool to get people to take you seriously.

Hirst, who grew up in Leeds, says it is the recognition that money brings with it that counts. He also talks about his early years in an interview for a TV series.

"I never thought I would ever be a famous artist or I would ever get successful," he says in the first programme of In Confidence due to be broadcast on Sky Arts on April 6.

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He says he always wanted to be the best drawer when he was at school but there was always a kid who was better than him, so he had to think of new reasons for doing it.

Hirst talks to Professor Laurie Taylor about his time studying in Leeds, reflecting on his love of "sticking rubbish on boards" doing collages rather than his mother's preferred art.

He remembers his mother saying: "Why can't you paint flowers?"

Hirst was born in Bristol, but his family later moved to Leeds where he studied at the city's College of Art before being accepted at Goldsmith's College, London.

After the famous pickled shark back in 1991 Hirst became the most prominent member the group known as Young British Artists.