Banksy painting set to balloon collector’s coffers

A two-part version of Banksy’s The Girl With Balloon painting is expected to fetch up to $4.75m (about R70m) when it goes under the hammer for the first time at a Christie’s auction in London on October 15.

The rare edition, one of 25 created by the elusive British street artist in 2005, features a young girl in one painting and her heart-shaped balloon in another.

“It’s a pretty signature image for Banksy in that he did the first iteration of it on the streets,” Katharine Arnold, co-head of post-war and contemporary art for Christie’s in Europe, said as the artwork went on display at the auction house’s London showrooms on Friday.

It’s an image that really is about hope and aspiration, which after the last 18 months that we’ve gone through is something we all need more than ever.

—  Katharine Arnold, Christie's Europe

Girl With Balloon first appeared on the streets of London’s Shoreditch in 2002, with Banksy creating versions of the painting on London’s South Bank in 2004 and at Israel’s barrier on the West Bank in 2005.

“There are some iterations of this where you see the little girl with the balloon in the tiny little format of a single canvas,” Arnold said.

“Here ... the balloon is already flown away into a second canvas. And, of course, that means that she’s forever separated from her little heart balloon that she’s hankering after.”

The diptych has been in the hands of a private UK collector since 2013. It is the first of its type to go on sale at Christie’s, where it is due to fetch between $3.39m (about R50m) and $4.75m.

“It’s an image that really is about hope and aspiration, which after the last 18 months that we’ve gone through is something we all need more than ever,” Arnold said.

Banksy, whose real identity is unknown, rose to fame for sharply ironic outdoor graffiti with political themes. Once a small-time graffiti artist from the English city of Bristol, his artwork has become hugely popular and valuable.

— Reuters