This Banksy may be trashy — but it fetched almost $10 million.
An oil painting by the notorious street artist that depicted an idyllic Claude Monet scene blighted by discarded items has fetched the second-highest price ever paid for one of his works.
Written content by Lee Brown via New York Post
“Show Me the Monet,” one of several reworkings of classic paintings that Banksy called his “Crude Oils” collection, was expected to get between $3.9 million to $6.5 million at auction Wednesday.
But it far exceeded expectations as it sold to an unidentified bidder at Sotheby’s in London on Wednesday evening for $9.89 million.
It came after a “lively and competitive 9-minute bidding battle between clients from around the world,” Sotheby’s said.
The only other Banksy to sell for more was his painting of the British parliament populated by chimpanzees, which sold for more than $12 million a year ago.
In “Show Me the Monet,” Banksy transforms Monet’s masterpiece depicting a Japanese-style bridge in his famous garden at Giverny into a modern-day fly-tipping spot — littered with discarded shopping trollies and a fluorescent orange traffic cone.
“The vandalized paintings reflect life as it is now,” the notoriously secretive artist, who has never officially been identified, said in 2005, when it was painted.
“We don’t live in a world like Constable’s Haywain anymore and, if you do, there is probably a travelers’ camp on the other side of the hill.” Read more from New York Post.
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