Death becomes him: Damien Hirst at Tate Modern – in pictures

Damien Hirst in front of his triptych entitled Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Mother and Child Divided, exhibition copy 2007 (1993 original in collection of Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo) Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

One of Hirst's sculptures, a giant ashtray, fills one of the galleries Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Lullaby, the Seasons, 2002 (detail)
Hirst began making medicine cabinets while still an art student. In 1992 he exhibited Pharmacy, a room-sized installation now on show in Hirst's Tate Modern survey show Photograph: Science Ltd. All rights reserved. DACS 2012. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates

A visitor looks at one of Hirst's 'spin' paintings: Beautiful, Childish, Expressive, Tasteless, Not Art, Over Simplistic, Throw Away, Kids' Stuff, Lacking Integrity, Rotating, Nothing but Visual Candy, Celebrating, Sensational, Inarguably Beautiful Painting (for over the Sofa), 1996 Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

A woman walks past one of Hirst's artworks featuring a sheep's head Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Sympathy in White Major – Absolution II, 2006 (detail), butterflies and household gloss.
Butterflies are a recurring motif in Hirst's work: his 1991 installation In and Out of Love saw creatures hatching from pupae stuck to canvases and floating about the room, living and dying in the exhibition space. The installation is recreated in the Tate Modern exhibition Photograph: Science Ltd. All rights reserved. DACS 2012. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates

A Thousand Years, 1990. Made the year after Hirst left Goldsmiths College of Art, this double vitrine featuring a rotting cow's head, insecto-cutor and flies was first shown in the warehouse group show Gambler. In a recent interview, Hirst told Tate director Nicholas Serota that it is still possibly the most exciting thing he has ever made. Hirst also recalled that Lucian Freud said to him, about this work, that 'I think you started with the final act, my dear' Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

A visitor contemplates The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The work was commissioned by the collector Charles Saatchi; the original 14ft tiger shark was replaced in 2006. This and a smaller, more recent version are on show at Tate Modern Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

A visitor photographs live butterflies that are part of the installation In and Out of Love Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

A visitor views one of Hirst's Spot paintings Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Visitors walk past a vitrine of dead fish Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Sinner, 1988 One of Hirst's early medicine cabinets, made while a 23-year-old student – and the same year he curated the groundbreaking Freeze exhibition with Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, Matt Collishaw and others Photograph: Science Ltd. All rights reserved. DACS 2012. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates