Money winners of 2008: Damien Hirst and his $198 million art auction

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Hedge fund managers weren't the only ones making buckets of money during the great boom of the early 21st century. So too were the artists whose work the newly rich love to buy. And no one has made more money selling paintings and sculptures to private equity bigwigs and Russian oligarchs than British artist Damien Hirst.

Until recently, Hirst was famous largely for his conceptual sculptures of dead animals floating inside glass-walled boxes. Much of his work displays an obsession with death, including a human skull encrusted with 8,000 diamonds and a box filled with flies feasting on a rotting cow's head. And his art isn't cheap. The asking price for the skull, titled "For the Love of God," was $100 million.

But like all modern visionaries, Hirst saved his greatest innovations for the marketplace itself. In the summer of 2008, Hirst organized his own art auction, neatly bypassing the dealers whose commissions typically claim a good chunk of the sale price of a piece of art. Sotheby's hosted the sale, waiving its usual fee to do so. Over 20,000 people viewed the show in just two days, and when it was over, Hirst had sold $198 million worth of art, a new record for a single-artist auction.

Hirst's profits may be puny compared to the financiers who buy his work, but $200 million in two days is a pretty good haul by most standards. And it sets the bar higher for the next generation of artists who create the shiny trophies that billionaires so love to collect.

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