WeeklySA_AdminGALLERY: Banksy’s lost work of unforgettable artwork of scarlet pimpernel artist…
By Jacob Mawela
‘Banksy’s Lost Works is well illustrated book by journalist and author Will Ellsworth-Jones, detailing the sold, lost and destroyed documents of the reclusive artist.
Banksy, as a muralist, is a pseudonymous British street artist, political activist, whose real name and identity remains unconfirmed and the subject of speculation.
In the past 30 years as a street artist, Banksy has sprayed all types of surfaces, from, inter alia, walls, doors, traffic bollards to tube trains, a cargo ship, a cash machine and a New York anti-graffiti sign.
Of particular public fascination in the book is a story of mural on the wall of a Victorian terraced house on Park Place in the seaside town of Margate, in England depicting a 1950s housewife clad in a pinafore and donning yellow washing-up gloves and spotting a black eye swollen shut and a missing tooth, seemingly shoving a man into a chest freezer.
The actual three-dimensional chest freezer – which had apparently been abandoned in an alley next to the house –is amalgamated into the artwork in such a manner that – viewed from a distance – the household appliance appears to render the mural an art installation.
Titled ‘Valentine’s Day Mascara’ and created by Banksy, the mural is an innuendo drawing attention to domestic violence – and also graces the cover of the tome, which is about the exploration of the reclusive artist’s sold, stolen and destroyed works.
Painted in early 2023, the freezer would later be removed by a district council truck, ostensibly upon public safety considerations.
Julian Usher, a gallery representative valued the artwork at six million pounds sterling.
“Ultimately, we have now saved this piece. It will be around forever,” said Usher.
“It took some effort to remove the artwork from its location of origin to various places … up until where it now resides while taking care that it remained intact.” The extent to which building owners and their agents were willing to go to the end of the earth to prise off the artwork from its original location, is mind-boggling.
Ellsworth-Jones elaborates on the structural engineering process involved in removing ‘Valentine’s Day Mascara’ from the Park Place house, thus: “The hallway floor and the stairs down to the cellar and up to the first floor of the house first had to be removed, followed thereafter by the dismantling of the inner layer of the cavity wall, in order to get to the back of the wall the mural was painted on…” Referred to by the author as “The Bartered Wife”.
It comprises one of the artist’s artworks fortunate to still exist in total preservation – as opposed to those around the world which have either been sold, stolen or destroyed by graffiti artists “who regard Banksy as an outcast and a ‘toy’ who paints for the masses”.
One of those pieces which falls into the category of Banksy’s ‘stolen and sold’ creations is ‘Stop and Search’, a stencilled contribution depicting Dorothy, a young girl character from The Wizard of Oz fairy tale in search of an Israeli soldier, which the artist had painted on the wall of a butcher’s shop along Hebron Street in Bethlehem in 2007.
An example of scavenging for gain, upon a London dealer named Robin Barton noting the artwork listed, along with another, on eBay for $2 million by a local carpenter familiar with Banksy’s worth.
He struck a deal with the carpenter in which he rewarded him with a mere $40 000 and promptly had the wall removed and ultimately shipped it to Miami where he sold the mural for $420 000.
A victim of his own success, Banksy is famous the world over and yet disdainful of the spotlight, preferring to remain anonymous.
Considered by many to be one of the most famous and controversial living artists in the world, and to others a rogue vandal with a political agenda, Banksy has scandalised and enlightened the art world since his acts of guerrilla art which put focus on issues – be they domestic, cultural, social, et cetera – began appearing on the streets of Barton Hill in Bristol over 25 years ago.
Banksy’s conflict related works include a series of seven pieces he painted on partially destroyed buildings around Kyiv, in 2022, as rallying cries in support of Ukraine. One depicts a woman in a dressing gown, hair in old-fashioned curlers, wearing a gas mask, armed with a fire extinguisher and projecting an eerie sense of an underdog’s defiance against the might of the Russian military.
Whilst one of the artworks was turned into a postage stamp – a testament to Banksy’s international appea. Another would be extracted off the wall by a group of locals whose ringleader would be handed a five-year suspended sentence despite claiming to the New York Times that “street art, in contrast to a piece of art in the Louvre, doesn’t belong to anyone.”
This is a book about what you can’t see: the works that have disappeared entirely – since the lifespan of graffiti is counted in days not years – whether removed by authorities or whisked away into people’s private art collections.
These remarkable works are as elusive as their creator but are returned here for public consumption and enjoyment.
Ellsworth-Jones is also the acclaimed author of Banksy: The Man behind the Wall.
· A trade paperback, Banksy’s Lost Works: On Trail of Vanishing Street Art is published by Abrams & Chronicled and distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers. Available at leading bookstores countrywide. It retails for R685
