Graffiti Artist Fetches $200,000

Work by the guerilla graffiti artist Banksy went under the hammer for a record price. Bombing Middle England, a canvas showing boules players tossing bombs across a lawn, sold for £102,000 at Sotheby's.It is the highest price ever reached by a Banksy piece at auction, Sotheby's said. The prestigious auction house had valued the acrylic and spraypaint work on canvas at £30-£50,000. Two other works by Bansky also exceeded expectations at the auctioneer's Olympia, west London, sales room. Balloon Girl, depicting a girl reaching for a heart-shaped balloon, went for £37,200 - around four times its original £7-£10,000 estimate. Art expert Charles Dupplin, of specialist insurer Hiscox, said: "Banksy is steadily becoming more of a household name. Our figures show that prices for contemporary art have risen dramatically, by 12% in the last year alone. "It's no surprise that pieces of art like this are fetching big sums." Famed for creating politicised stencils on the walls of public buildings, Banksy's identity has never officially been revealed. His high-profile stunts have included painting "I want out" inside an elephant enclosure and a painting of a ladder on the partition wall in Israel's West Bank. The artist now has a celebrity following including Brad Pitt, while last month thieves stole a wall featuring a Banksy drawing from Paddington, London, and attempted to sell it online. Today was the second time Banksy's work has been sold at Sotheby's. Two pieces, Mona Lisa, and a series of prints of the supermodel Kate Moss fetched more than £50,000 each in an auction last October. (For full source and article click the Headline) Irish Art