‘Show Me the Monet’ of Banksy Sells for US$9.9 Million at Sotheby’s
It is now the second-highest-selling artwork of Banksy
The popular painting of Banksy, ‘Show Me the Monet’ just sold for US$9.9 million in Sotheby’s latest Contemporary Art Evening Auction sale. Initially, it was expected this painting will not sell for more than US$6.5 million. People were speculating that the price could go as low as US$3.9 million.
However, after selling for a whopping price of US$9.9 million, ‘Show Me the Monet’ has become the 2nd highest paid artwork by Banksy.
Painted in oil, the artwork features Banksy’s mischievous twist on Claude Monet’s masterpiece Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies (1899) by depicting a Japanese-style bridge in his famous garden at Giverny into a modern-day fly-tipping spot — trashed with discarded shopping trollies and a fluorescent orange traffic cone.
Monet is the French painter who introduced French impressionist painting which transformed French art in late 19th century. Apart from that, he was also a prominent philosopher.
This painting is one of Banky’s many re-workings that come under the ‘Crude Oils’ collection. The artist has also created similar reimaginations of works by Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Hopper, and Jac Vettriano.
Banky’s “Show Me The Monet” was sold to an unidentified bidder. Though, according to the auction house, the bidding for this piece went on for 9-minutes. All in all, it seemed like a very competitive battle between people from all over the globe.
Banksy created this artwork back in 2005 and sold 15 years later now. During an interview in 2005 Banksy said, “The vandalized paintings reflect life as it is now,”
“We don’t live in a world like [the one featured in John Constable’s The Hay Wain] anymore and, if you do, there is probably a traveler’s camp on the other side of the hill. The real damage done to our environment is not done by graffiti writers and drunken teenagers, but by big business. . .exactly the people who put gold-framed pictures of landscapes on their walls and try to tell the rest of us how to behave.”, Banksy added.
