June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Damien Hirst, whose $100 million diamond skull is priced nearly as high as the costliest estate in swank East Hampton, New York, said the artwork has the right value for the market.

``You have to get the price right, or it will come back into the market,'' said Hirst today in an interview at London's White Cube gallery, where the skull was shown to reporters. ``A lot of people buy things and flip them,'' making a quick profit if the work has been underpriced, he said.

Two or three collectors are ``seriously interested'' in purchasing the artwork, said Tim Marlow, the gallery's exhibitions director.

The life-sized platinum skull, studded with 8,601 stones weighing 1,106.18 carats, cost Hirst $20 million to make -- about the same amount of money as Jay Jopling spent to build his new White Cube Mason's Yard gallery.

Titled ``For the Love of God,'' the skull can be seen there under guard from June 3, after a private view. Other Hirst works are at White Cube in Hoxton Square.

The value of art in the shows is 200 million pounds ($396 million) to 250 million pounds, said Frank Dunphy, Hirst's business manager. Prices start at 6,000 pounds for smaller Hirst works made in multiple copies, Marlow said.

Picasso Price

For $103 million, money manager Ron Baron acquired a 40-acre estate in East Hampton last month, setting a record for a U.S. residential property. A sale of the skull for about $100 million would put Hirst, 41, on a price level with Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt, dead artists who produced some of the 20th century's most famous works.

Hirst, wearing jeans and a blue shirt imprinted with a black bat-winged skull, said he wasn't thinking of the newspaper headlines his $100 million skull would get when he set the price. His business skills were learned the hard way, he said.

``A lot of painful things happened to me. It's the oldest trick in the world to come in and say, `I love it, can I have it?' and then flip it for a profit.''

Some traders who buy Hirst works worry about how much he turns out at his factory-style studios. Hirst responds with an anecdote: ``I had a phone call from one of my galleries. He said, `You're making too much. Do you have any more for me?'''

The diamond-studded work, with an asking price more than triple that of any sculpture sold at auction in recent years, shows how artists reach for special effects to draw sales in a crowded market, and how self-promotion is key to their success.

Disco Ball

``The skull says so much about the Zeitgeist,'' or spirit of the times, said Oliver Barker, a contemporary art specialist at Sotheby's, which will auction a Hirst pill cabinet on June 21.

The skull, spotlit like a glitter ball, sits on velvet in a glass case in an otherwise blacked-out room. ``We were worried it would look too `bling', like a disco ball,'' Hirst said. ``But you have to see it through.''

A 4 million-pound diamond decorates the crown, and stained teeth protrude from the mouth. One visitor whose mobile phone rang was told not to take it out of her bag.

Hirst received journalists in small groups in a naturally lit room, while in Mason's Yard, more than 30 photographers jostled for shots.

Gallery officials initially tried to divide them into groups, then gave up and spent the rest of the 10-minute session trying to stop people backing into Hirst paintings, including ones showing biopsy procedures.

Self-Promotion

A sliced shark is displayed downstairs, with severed animals and fish in tanks, interspersed with large paintings decorated with broken glass and blades.

``Damien has been tireless in promoting his own work,'' Barker said. ``He's had shows in Mexico City, Zurich, Moscow, Los Angeles, New York and London, and there's good evidence that buyers from Korea, China, Europe, and North and South America are getting very interested in buying his works.''

Hirst collectors include hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen, who owns an $8 million pickled shark bought from London collector Charles Saatchi, and Eli Broad's Broad Art Foundation, which has eight Hirst works, including a lamb in a tank.

Fund manager Baron's purchase of Adelaide de Menil's East Hampton estate surpassed the U.S. record set by Revlon Inc. Chairman Ronald O. Perelman, who sold his Palm Beach estate for $70 million in 2004. Baron declined to comment.

Fortune Factory

Among portraits, a 1912 Klimt image of Adele Bloch-Bauer took $87.9 million at Christie's International last year, and Picasso's ``Dora Maar au Chat'' fetched $95.2 million at Sotheby's.

Sculptures usually sell for much less. In 2005, Constantin Brancusi's 1922 ``Bird in Space'' sold for $27.5 million at Christie's, and Broad paid $23.8 million at Sotheby's for David Smith's 1965 ``Cubi XXVIII,'' the highest auction price for a contemporary sculpture.

Hirst is a boon for dealers and auction houses. About 80 artists and support staff at his studios help turn out new works, often on the themes of death and disease. His art factory system resembles that of Andy Warhol, who died in 1987.

Hirst has amassed a fortune of 130 million pounds, mostly from his personal art collection, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. His business manager, Frank Dunphy, said he's the biggest dollar earner of any artist living or dead in the U.K. Dunphy also provided the $20 million figure for the cost of the skull's manufacture.

Auction sales for Hirst rose 84 percent last year to about $16.9 million, according to data service Artprice.com.

For information on booking tickets to see the skull, go to http://www.whitecube-tickets.com/. The tickets are free.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 1, 2007 10:30 EDT