Bitter pill to swallow: Artist claims Hirst copied her jewellery

stenholme has suffered, and will continue to suffer, damage” due to Hirst’s infringement that is “both irreparable and not fully compensable [sic] by monetary damages”.

The lawsuit against Hirst charges two counts of copyright infringement – one count under American law and another under Canadian – and one count of unfair competition.

Wolstenholme seeks punitive damages, a permanent injunction preventing Hirst from copying her charm bracelets, and for a constructive trust to be set up so that she can benefit from all revenue generated by sales of her allegedly copied work.

Dickinson Wright PLLC explain in the papers that they are bringing the action in an American court because while Hirst lives in England, his flagship retail store is in New York.

A spokesman for Hirst’s company Science Ltd said: “We refute the claim made by Colleen Wolstenholme. Damien Hirst designed his earliest pill work in 1988, long before Wolstenholme created her first jewellery. We will defend any action brought against Damien.” One of Hirst’s medicine cabinets,

sold at auction in 2010 for £9.65 million, breaking the then European record for work by a living artist. The Turner Prize-winning artist’s career has been dogged by allegations of plagiarism.

In 2010, an art magazine published an article accusing him of producing works “inspired by others”.

Charles Thomson, an artist and cofounder of Stuckists, a group which campaigns against conceptual art, made the claims in magazine.

Mr Thomson came up with 15 cases, eight of which he claimed were new, including Hirst’s work

In 2007 a former friend of Hirst’s, John LeKay, claimed that the art star’s diamond skull artwork

was derived from his own crystal skulls made in 1993. But even if the allegations were true, copyright does not protect ideas, only a specific form of expression.

In 2000 it was disclosed that Hirst had paid an undisclosed sum to prevent legal action for breach of copyright by designers of a toy which resembled his famous bronze sculpture, Earlier this year, it emerged that another of Hirst’s works,

in which the carcasses of a calf and a cow are cut down the middle and placed in vitrines side by side, leaked potentially dangerous levels of formaldehyde fumes. Along with two other works –

and – it formed part of Hirst’s five-month exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2012.

Using sensors, investigators established formaldehyde leakage in the atmosphere from the tanks reached levels of 5ppm (parts per million), which is 10 times above the advisory limit.

A spokesman for Science Ltd said they did not receive any complaints about the show at the time, adding: “We don’t believe any risk was posed to the public.”