Banksy’s Show Me the Monet sells for US$9.9 million to an Asian private collector

 

Banksy’s Show Me the Monet sells for US$9.9 million to an Asian private collector

  • Show Me the Monet, Banksy’s take on Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond, sold for nearly £7.6 million, the second highest price paid for work by the mystery artist
  • Sotheby’s said five collectors battled for nearly nine minutes to drive the final price beyond its estimate of £3-£5 million

Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse

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Show Me the Monet, which sold at auction for nearly US$10 million, transforms Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond – depicting a Japanese-style bridge in a garden – into a modern-day fly-tipping spot. Photo: AFPShow Me the Monet, which sold at auction for nearly US$10 million, transforms Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond – depicting a Japanese-style bridge in a garden – into a modern-day fly-tipping spot. Photo: AFP
Show Me the Monet, which sold at auction for nearly US$10 million, transforms Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond – depicting a Japanese-style bridge in a garden – into a modern-day fly-tipping spot. Photo: AFP

An Asian private collector has bought an oil painting by British street artist Banksy parodying a Claude Monet masterpiece for £7.6 million (US$9.9 million), the second highest price paid at auction for a work by the mysterious artist.

Show Me the Monet, a modern take on Monet’s impressionist classic The Water-Lily Pond, sold for £7,551,600 at a Sotheby’s London auction on Wednesday following a bidding battle.

“The hammer came down after five determined collectors battled for nearly nine minutes to drive the final price beyond its estimate of £3 million-£5 million to become the second highest price for the artist at auction,” Sotheby’s said.

The sale comes a year after a Banksy painting depicting the British parliament populated by chimpanzees 
smashed the record for the street artist by fetching nearly £9.9 million
. On that occasion, the 2009 work, entitled Devolved Parliament, attracted a 13-minute battle between 10 different bidders.
Show Me the Monet, a modern take on Monet’s impressionist classic The Water-Lily Pond, sold for £7,551,600. Photo: AFP
Show Me the Monet, a modern take on Monet’s impressionist classic The Water-Lily Pond, sold for £7,551,600. Photo: AFP

Show Me the Monet was created in 2005 as part of a collection called “The Crude Oils”, and was first shown publicly in only Banksy’s second gallery exhibition.

The painting transforms Monet’s masterpiece depicting a Japanese-style bridge in his famous garden at Giverny, a village in the French region of Normandy, into a modern-day fly-tipping spot. Instead of an idyllic lily pond, the composition shows discarded shopping trolleys and a fluorescent orange traffic cone floating in the water beneath the bridge.

“Ever prescient as a voice of protest and social dissent, here Banksy shines a light on society’s disregard for the environment in favour of the wasteful excesses of consumerism,” said Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s European head of contemporary art.

“Recent years have seen seminal Banksys come to auction, but this is one of his strongest, and most iconic, to appear yet,” he added.

Banksy has become a household name for his graffiti paintings that seem to appear overnight on buildings and at sites around the world. The artist’s identity remains shrouded in mystery even as his works attract increasingly high sums of money at auction.

He continues to use his art in stunts that generate huge publicity – in 2018, for example, his Girl With The Balloon artwork 
partially shredded itself as the hammer came down at Sotheby’s
. The art was subsequently retitled Love Is In The Bin.

Additional reporting by Staff Reporter

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3106633/banksys-show-me-monet-sells-us99-million-asian-private

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