Banksy’s Monet tribute is being auctioned next month and is expected to sell for £3-5 million.
Banksy‘s ‘Show Me The Monet’ painting is a dissident version of Claude Monet’s famous Water Lilies picture and it will be auctioned at Sotheby’s this month. The street artist created this masterpiece in 2005, and in usual Banksy style, it offers a commentary on modern society. The painting very closely resembles the original but also features incongruous images in the foreground, such as discarded shopping trolleys and a traffic cone floating in the water. [Featured image: @sothebys]
Following a two-day preview in London, beginning on September 25, the iconic painting will be displayed in New York and Hong Kong. It will then return to London and go on sale through a live-streamed auction at Sotheby’s towards the end of October. It is estimated that the sought-after picture will sell for £3-5 million, but only time will tell.
This piece was originally on show at a Banksy’s exhibition in London fifteen years ago. It was part of a collection entitled ‘The Crude Oils’ which were all “remixes” of famous pieces of art, according to the artist himself. Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ painted as completely dead or dying and Andy Warhol‘s ‘Marilyn Monroe’ replaced with Kate Moss, are a few others from that collection.
Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s European head of contemporary art, said “More canal than an idyllic lily pond, Banksy litters Monet’s composition with discarded shopping trollies and a florescent orange traffic cone. Ever prescient as a voice of protest and social dissent, here Banksy shines a light on society’s disregard for the environment in favor of the wasteful excesses of consumerism.”
It really is quite the sight to behold! And if you want to witness the auction yourself, you could wake up in the early morn (5am) to see who takes home the dissident Monet.