Banksy mural to be auctioned
A piece of Banksy street art depicting a caricature of the underground artist in the guise of a painter complete with palette and easel is to be auctioned on Ebay this evening.
The design, a stencil of the artist over a red Banksy tag, is being offered for sale on-line until 14 January by the owners of post-production house Portobello Post in west London, where the mural was completed last summer.
Owner Luti Fagbenle plans to offer the section of wall for sale intact, but the cost of its removal is not included in the sale price of the artwork. A spokeswoman for Portobello Post says that the company has had discussions with building specialists about how the work can be relocated.
But she dismisses as ‘unrealistic’ reports in today’s national press that the piece could fetch as much as £1m.
Portobello Post has not spoken to Banksy about the sale of the work yet, she says, but they had no direct contact with him in the first place – he agreed to do it via an intermediary for a favour.
The artist is thought to have carried out the work at the studios near Portobello Market hidden in a small yellow tent during the busiest part of the weekend last summer, she adds.
Banksy my arse
I watched from the cafe nextdoor while this was being painted last September – and if it’s true then Banksy is 3 people, including a young woman and somneone who looks suspiciously like the wall’s owner !