Arte: Artist Angus Fairhurst dead at 41

Damien Hirst and others pay tribute to 'brilliantly inventive' founding YBA, who has taken his own life

Mark Brown and agencies
Monday March 31, 2008
guardian.co.uk

Angus Fairhurst, one of the original Young British Artists who blazed such a trail through the 1990s, has taken his own life in a remote part of Scotland, it was announced today. He was 41.

Fairhurst was one of the 16 Goldsmith's College students who took part in the 1988 exhibition Freeze, mainly organised by second-year Damien Hirst. It was the seminal event for the YBAs, and launched numerous careers.

Hirst and Fairhurst remained friends and exhibited, together with Sarah Lucas, at Tate Britain in 2004 in a show called In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Hirst said today: "He was a great artist and a great friend, he always supported me in fair weather and foul. He shone like the moon and as an artist he had just the right amount of slightly-round-the-bend. I loved him".

Lucas said: "Angus was a lovely man. Funny and kind. Very much loved by all his friends. Very much loved by me."

Fairhurst may not have reached the level of fame and fortune that other YBAs achieved, but he was highly regarded. Adrian Searle, the Guardian's art critic, said he had often found Fairhurst's work "strange and funny and abject".

Searle added: "He was much more subtle than a lot of his artist friends: to be a Young British Artist, subtlety doesn't win prizes. All the YBAs did all their development in public, and for some it stifles them and makes them self-conscious. Too much is expected too soon".

Fairhurst's latest solo exhibition at Sadie Coles gallery in London closed only on Friday. In a joint statement Coles and Pauline Daly, the gallery's other director, said: "Angus was funny, ridiculously charming, a wonderful cook and great host, a crazy dancer, a radical gardener, a nature lover, and an intensely intelligent artist. He was a dear friend to numerous other artists and had a huge number of close friends from all walks of life. We will all miss his love and kindness".

Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain, said: "Angus's death is tragic loss to British art. He was a brilliantly inventive, witty and provocative artist, always modest about his fundamentally important contribution to the soaring international reputation of British art since the 1990s".

A spokesperson for Strathclyde police said: "The body of a 41-year-old man was found within woodland near Inveroran cottage in Bridge of Orchy at around 4pm on Saturday March 29.

"A post-mortem will be carried out to establish the cause of death. However, at this time, there appear to be no suspicious circumstances".

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