1. Banksy’s piece entitled “Picnic” was sold to American actress Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt for $226,000. The artwork depicts a white family enjoying a pleasant picnic while remaining oblivious to the small crowd of starving Africans encircling them. Typical of Banksy’s trademark sarcastic political statements, this piece exemplifies much of what Banksy’s art appears to be striving to communicate. The piece is loosely based off of the classic Manet painting entitled, “The Picnic, or (Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe) and uses the obvious contrast in the two main elements as a technique to satirize the inequality in income across the world and the often racial motivations behind that inequality.

2. Due to the unconventional nature of Banksy’s art, the auctioning of his art often comes coupled with the auction of the house attached to it. In one of the more notable of these situations was the $400,000 sale of a property, in southwest England. The mural on the wall of the house provided, courtesy of Banksy, was worth most of the price of the entire sale. The owners sold the home in 2007 through the Red Propeller art gallery. The owners were originally distressed that many of the prospective buyers would want to remove the mural so the sale to the art gallery was an all around good move; resulting in the preservation of the piece as well as a decent chunk of cash for the former owners.

3. The highest asking price for a Banksy piece so far has come from a couple selling a mobile home in Norfolk, UK. The couple had met Banksy at a music festival over a decade ago, before Banksy was anything other than “just another tagger”, and allowed him to use their mobile home as a canvas which as left them with a piece of art carrying a value that was formerly unimaginable to the couple. The owners decided to sell their home for $1 million because they believed that they were not capable of being responsible for such a work of art. Continue reading →