Painting Banksy from fashion icon Paul Smith's collection will be auctioned at Bonhams London on June 29, with an estimated value of US$2.3 million. Smith purchased the canvas, “Congestion Charge” (2004), at the artist’s 2004 pop-up exhibition “Santa’s Ghetto” in London and has kept it ever since.
The painting comes from a group known as the “Vandalized Oils” or “Crude Oils” who became famous in the 2005 London exhibition “Crude Oils: A Gallery of Remixed Masterpieces, Vandalism and Worms”, where visitors were forced to share the exhibition space with rats rented to a film production company. In these works, the artist riffs on Old Masters or modifies paintings found in pawnshops in London.
“Congestion Charge” comes from this last group and shows a pastoral scene, with a corral and cows, over which Banksy painted a sign indicating that congestion pricing will be in effect in this “central zone” during certain hours. The sign satirizes the policy instituted in London to reduce traffic during peak hours.
The painting “demonstrates the indisputable and lasting validity of Banksy as a social commentator and contemporary artist,” said Ralph Taylor, global head of post-war and contemporary art at Bomhams, in a press release. “The 'Vandalized Oils' of Banksy have always proven to be among the most valuable and highly coveted works in his oeuvre – and Congestion Charge is no exception.”
He added: “This painting is one of the first examples of his series that reflects the subversive interventions of Banksy in urban spaces to the elite spaces of high art”.
In fact, other “Vandalized Oils” have fetched some of the artist’s highest prices. Smith sold “Sunflowers from Petrol Station” (2005), a riff on Van Gogh, at Christie's New York in November 2021; it came within the estimate of $14.6 million, currently the artist's third-highest price. Meanwhile, “Show Me the Monet” (2005), by an unknown seller, featuring a destroyed view of the impressionist's garden, surpassed its estimate of $6.6 million when it sold at Sotheby's London in October 2020 for US$9.9 million. This is the sixth highest price in Banksy at auction.
The artist's current auction record is $25.4 million, for the painting “Love Is in the Bin” (2018), achieved at Sotheby's London in October 2021.
Smith's devotion to art is well known. A 2019 Sotheby's video reveals him in his studio with works by Peter Blake, Shepard Fairey, David Hockney It is Patti Smith.
Source: Artnet News