Saatchi’s big fish nets £7million.

Sunday Times Arts Editor Richard brooks reveals [16 January] the sale of Damien Hirst’s 1991 pickled shark to an American buyer for £7million.

The piece of conceptual art had been bought by Charles Saatchi for just £50,000 and he gets a return of 14,000% on his investment in Young British Artists.

Richard Brooks states that the work “will be lost to Britain”, that its departure is “a big loss to Britain” and that Nicholas Serota of Tate Modern was “disappointed not just for his gallery’s sake but for Britain”. He also appears to lament the fact that since the fishy statement is less than fifty years old government powers cannot stop its export.

Brooks, however, ends his article by saying that: “Some believe that Saatchi may have seen that conceptual art is on the wane.”

This Arts Editor agrees andsays that Charles Saatchi, Richard Brooks, Nicholas Serota and even Damien Hirst should be given a Queen’s Award to Exporters.

Apparently the big fish is destined for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The photograph to illustrate the work of art seems to show the shark smiling enigmatically.