Hirst Fish-and-Chip-Shop Gift to Sell for up to £150,000

LEEDS, England—A Damien Hirst work that went nearly unnoticed on a fish-and-chip-shop wall for almost a decade will hit the auction block this fall, where it is expected to go for up to £150,000 ($303,000).

The artist's younger brother worked at the shop in Leeds in the 1990s, and when the shop workers saw publicity about Hirst's Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purposes of Understanding — a school of fish each in its own small tank — they joked that he should make something for the shop. Two weeks later the fish in formaldehyde arrived.

The shop has since closed, and the fish ended up on former owner Darren Walker's wall, until he realized that the work was worth almost as much as a new house in Leeds. The work will be auctioned, along with its original crate stamped by White Cube, Hirst's gallery, by Bonham's in the fall. Simon Mitchell, the auction house's regional director in Leeds, said: "The provenance is personal and impeccable. It's an amazing story about artistic generosity."