His taste has mutated from American abstraction and minimalism to the Young British Artists (YBAs), whose work he first saw at Goldsmith's Art School. At the YBAs' 1990 "Gambler" exhibition, Saatchi bought Damien Hirst's first major 'animal' installation, "A Thousand Years". In 1991, he acquired major artworks by Hirst and Marc Quinn, becoming instrumental in launching their careers. His renown as a patron peaked in 1997, when part of his collection was shown at the Royal Academy as the exhibition "Sensation", which travelled to Berlin and New York causing headlines and some offence (for example, to the families of children murdered by Myra Hindley, who was portrayed in one of the works), and consolidating the position of Hirst, Emin and other YBAs.