“It’s not a ‘preserved’ lamb, it’s a dead lamb. But then it does have a kind of new life.”[1]

‘Away from the Flock’, a lamb in a tank of formaldehyde solution, was first shown in the group exhibition curated by Hirst, ‘Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away’, at the Serpentine Gallery, London (1994). It is a key early work in Hirst’s, ‘Natural History’ series.

In ‘Away from the Flock’, Hirst addresses, “that failure of trying so hard to do something that you destroy the thing that you’re trying to preserve.”[2] The title came after Hirst completed the work and observed the “tragic beauty” of the animal. The lamb, identifiable within Christian iconography as Jesus, has been separated by death from the living so that, “you kind of feel sorry for it.”[3]

An edition of ‘Away from the Flock’ was acquired jointly by the Tate Collection and National Galleries of Scotland through The Antony d'Offay Donation in 2008. Since when it’s been included in the Tate Gallery’s touring ‘ARTISTS ROOMS’ exhibition.