Banksy’s three most recognisable works from Robbie Williams’s collection will be up for sale, and they could fetch millions.
The first edition of Sotheby’s The Now Evening Auction will take place in London, March 2nd.
Banksy is an anonymous street artist who hails form Bristol. His artworks are valued at millions of pounds each.
Williams’ first sale of anything in his private art collection is after the sale his Wiltshire house with seven bedrooms.
He sold the home, said to be haunted, for £6.75m – £1.35m less than he paid in 2009.
Banksy’s Girl With Balloon by Robbie Williams will go on sale at the Sotheby’s The Now Evening Auction, London, March 2.
Banksy’s Vandalized Oils (Choppers), from Robbie Williams’s collection, will be available for purchase in March
Banksy’s Kissing Coppers Collection by Robbie Williams They are all expected to sell for millions.
Williams commented on the artworks: “I can remember the first sightings of Girl With Balloon and Vandalised Oils. (Choppers). And Kissing Coppers.
“I think they’re some of his finest paintings, and I love the way they connect to street art.
“As an artist collector of Banksy’s works, you can become part of a larger cultural movement.”
The classic pop art image of Girl With Balloon first made its debut under Waterloo Bridge in 2002 and it once again made headlines in 2018 after it partially self-destructed at the conclusion of a Sotheby’s auction in which it had been sold for £1.1 million.
The new partially shredded artwork became Love Is In The Bin and went under the hammer for £18,582,000 in October 2021, which the auction house cited as a record fee for the street artist.
Williams’s Girl With Balloon (2006) is depicted on metal and is the first of its kind to appear at auction, Sotheby’s have said, starting with a price estimate of £2 million to £3 million.
The exterior of The Prince Albert Pub, Brighton, first displayed Kissing Coppers in 2004, which shows two British officers in an intimate embrace.
Williams is selling his first personal artwork for the first time.
After being vandalized repeatedly, the mural’s original design was taken down in 2014.
Williams’s version of the artwork from 2005, which is estimated at £2.5 million to £3.5 million, is the first time a Kissing Coppers painting on canvas has been offered on the secondary market, Sotheby’s said.
Vandalised Oils (Choppers), a third Banksy Banksy work, dates back to 2005. It features two militarized military helicopters in a tranquil pastoral setting.
The artwork, which hails from the artist’s Vandalised Oils series which sees graffiti on top of classical oil paintings, has an estimated price tag of £2.5 million to £3.5 million.
Hugo Cobb is the head of The Now Evening Auction, Sotheby’s London. He said that these works combine the cultural legacies from two of Britain’s most famous stars, Robbie Williams, and Banksy.
“Like their creator and their owner, they’re acerbic and iconic and irreverent.
Sotheby’s says that The Now Evening Auction is designed to showcase works created over the past two decades by today’s most innovative artists.
These three paintings will go up in Sotheby’s New York gallery starting on January 22nd for a six day preview.
The group will travel to Hong Kong on February 8-9, followed by London to view the final public display from February 22 to March 2.