Iconic Banksy print fetches more than £80,000 at US auction

A people of Banksy’s celebrated Girl with Balloon artwork has fetched much than 100,000 dollars astatine a Los Angeles auction.

An archetypal impervious people of the iconic mural sold for 104,000 dollars (£80,652), doubly its expected asking price.

The 2004 pieces were offered to the nationalist by Julien’s Auctions from the prized postulation of the famed artist’s longtime cause and lensman Steve Lazarides.

Banksy’s famed Hooded Figure archetypal coating sold for 78,000 dollars (£60,496).

An archetypal hand-cut stencil of Banksy’s sanction fetched 58,000 dollars (£44,984) portion a bid of sketches by the reclusive creator connected a manilla featuring conception designs for his Paparazzi Rat stencil sold for 52,000 dollars (£40,336).

Also included arsenic portion of the auction were 15 burner phones utilized by Lazarides to interaction Banksy, an archetypal marque of Puma “Turf War” sneakers worn by the Bristol creator and archetypal impervious prints of galore of his different works.

Darren Julien, co-founder and enforcement manager of Julien’s Auctions, said: “This astonishing postulation assembled and lovingly kept for implicit 25 years by his closest subordinate and partner, Steve Lazarides, offers an unprecedented look astatine the past and way of the antheral that would go the world’s astir celebrated and visionary creator named Banksy.

“This auction featuring galore of Banksy’s earliest works, astir recognizable pieces and idiosyncratic effects is simply a historical accidental for the adjacent caretaker to ain the astir broad and definitive archive of Banksy’s legacy.”

Last month, a abstracted people of Girl With Balloon was besides stolen from Grove Gallery successful London, earlier being recovered by police.

“Banksy, myself, and a mates of others acceptable up a institution called Pictures On Walls and similar we truly wanted to marque inexpensive affordable creation for the masses,” Lazarides said.

“For a precise abbreviated infinitesimal successful time, we made a difference, we made it OK for mean radical to similar art… It’s by acold the proudest happening I’ve done. And by acold the astir almighty happening I deliberation he’s done.”