A parody of Claude Monet’s impressionist water lilies by street artist Banksy has sold at auction for over £ 7.5 million.
The piece is titled Show me Monet, It was auctioned for well over the estimated price of between 3.5 million and 5 million pounds.
Show me Monet He recreates one of Monet’s most famous paintings, adding an abandoned shopping cart and traffic cones to a landscape.
The auction took place in London at Sotheby’s on Wednesday (21 October) and generated a total of £ 7551,600. Five collectors competed for the artwork, in a bidding war that lasted about nine minutes.
Alex Pranchik, head of contemporary art in Europe at Sotheby’s, said of the painting: “In one of his most important paintings, Banksy took Monet’s iconic drawing of the Japanese bridge in the garden of the famous impressionist landmark in Giverny and turned it into a modern-day fly – the tip.
(Getty Images / Tolga Akmen)
“More channel than idyllic lily pond, Banksy arranges the Monet composition with discarded shopping carts and a fluorescent orange traffic cone. As a voice of protest and social dissent, Banksy here highlights society’s disregard for the environment in favor of the profligate excesses of consumerism.”
This piece is now the second most expensive Banksy artwork sold at auction, behind it Parliament Commissioner, A painting that depicts government ministers as chimpanzees.
Parliament Commissioner It sold for 9.9 million pounds last year.
Show me Monet It is part of a series written by the mysterious Banksy. Titled Crude Oil, the series seeks to re-imagine numerous church paintings and add contemporary satirical twists.
