DAMIEN HIRST has already portrayed cows being crucified. Now he is to take a more conventional approach to religious art, emulating the old masters by painting two 20ft-high religious works for display in St Paul's Cathedral.
The pictures are intended to be placed on two columns directly below the main dome. They will be on display for about six months.
The works are part of an art programme that includes the installation of three or four plasma screens by the American video artist Bill Viola. The videos will be placed close to the high altar.
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Hirst's paintings are provisionally called Hope and Salvation and are supposed to represent the hope and salvation children bring to parents. It is understood Hirst has used his sons, aged 14, 9 and 4, as models for the pictures.
The oil paintings were due to be unveiled this month at St Paul's, but this has been put
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off until next summer. It is understood that the cathedral authorities want more works from Hirst.
This is the first time Hirst, 44, has produced work specifically for a cathedral. Although he is an atheist, he was brought up a Catholic and religion has long influenced his work.
A 1994 sculpture called Prodigal Son showed a cow cut in half. Hirst's 2003 exhibition at the White Cube gallery, Romance in the Age of Uncertainty, included an installation called Jesus and the Disciples. It consisted of 13 glass tanks filled with formaldehyde, 12 of which contained a cow's head.
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Hirst's diamond skull, which went on show in London in 2007 and was priced at £50m - although it is unclear whether it fetched that amount - is called For the Love of God.
St Paul's would not confirm Hirst had been invited to display his paintings, but the cathedral has shown works by Rebecca Horn and Yoko Ono in the past four years as part of its contemporary art programme.
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"We did not commission them as we have no money, but when the artists approached us with something we thought appropriate, as with these two, we put them on display," said Canon Martin Warner, who runs the programme.
"We do it because contemporary art touches the imagination and can be both inspiring and challenging. We are interested in their art whether or not the artists are religious."
The Hirst project is the most significant of the cathedral's recent exhibits because of his fame and because the works will be shown in such a prominent place.
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Unlike Hirst's works, Viola's plasma screens are intended to be on permanent display. The videos will depict Mary and some of the Christian martyrs. This project is due to be unveiled in 2011 at a cost of about £2m. The money is being raised by Viola's London gallery, Haunch of Venison.
- A David Hockney picture from 1962 will be seen publicly for the first time since at least 1970 when the new Nottingham Contemporary gallery opens next weekend. Two Friends in a Cul De Sac was bought for £4,000 in 1970 by a private individual and the painting has since hung in his living room.