LONDON – A painting by street artist Banksy with an environmental message and an estimate of up to 5 million pounds ($6.3 million) is going up for auction, with some of the proceeds helping victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.
Sotheby’s auction house said Tuesday that “Crude Oil (Vettriano)” is being sold in London next month from the collection of Mark Hoppus, bassist with California skate-punk band Blink-182, who sees Banksy as a kindred spirit.
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Hoppus said he was drawn to the subversion, humor and intelligence of Banksy’s work and the similarities between “skateboarding, punk rock and art.”
“I feel like street art and punk rock have the same core,” Hoppus said. “The left-out and overlooked making their own reality. … Just go make art. It’s the same spirit. And I’ve loved art and especially street art ever since realizing that.”
“Crude Oil (Vettriano)” is part of a 2005 series of works in which Banksy put a satirical spin on famous paintings — withering Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and smashing the diner window in Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” The artist said his aim was to show that “the real damage done to our environment is not done by graffiti writers and drunken teenagers, but by big business.”
The work going under the hammer is based on “The Singing Butler,” a painting by Scottish artist Jack Vettriano showing a couple in evening dress dancing on a beach as servants proffer sheltering umbrellas. Banksy has added a sinking oil liner and two figures lugging a barrel of toxic waste.
“We loved this painting since the moment we saw it,” said Hoppus, who bought the artwork with his wife, Skye Everly, in 2011. He said the painting – “unmistakably Banksy, but different” – has hung in the family’s homes in London and Los Angeles.
Hoppus said he would use the proceeds of the sale to buy work by upcoming artists. Some will go to the California Fire Foundation, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Cedars Sinai Hematology Oncology Research.
Banksy, who has never confirmed his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His mischievous and often satirical images include two male police officers kissing, armed riot police with yellow smiley faces and a chimpanzee with a sign bearing the words, “Laugh now, but one day I’ll be in charge.”
Several of his works have sold for multiple millions at auction. The record is almost 18.6 million pounds ($25.4 million at the time) paid at Sotheby’s in October 2021 for “Love is in the Bin” – an image of a girl with a balloon that partially self-destructed during an auction three years earlier thanks to a shredder hidden in the frame.
“Crude Oil (Vettriano)” is on display at Sotheby’s in New York until Thursday and in London Feb. 26-March 4.