ArtsBeat: Disputed Banksy Work Brings $1.1 Million at Auction:
“In the latest and perhaps final installment of one of the art world’s most amusing controversies of 2013, “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy),” the satirical work stenciled by the graffiti artist Banksy on a wall in North London, was sold at a private auction held by the London-based Sincura Group — which describes itself as “concierge specialists who pride themselves on obtaining the unobtainable” — on Sunday for what the BBC reported was more than £750,000, or about $1.1 million.
The work, in which Banksy depicted a young boy in black and white, sepia and grey, sewing rea, white and blue bunting on an antique sewing machine, was taken as a tart comment on Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations when it appeared on the wall of a discount shop in the Wood Green section of North London last May. Like many of Banksy’s works, it was created in the dead of night, and quickly became a focus of interest.
That interest was rekindled in February when the mural vanished, resurfacing in Miami as part of an auction of contemporary works. The auction house, Fine Art Auctions Miami, expected it to fetch between $500,000 to $700,000. That led the Haringey Council, which represents the district where Banksy created the piece, to undertake an international campaign to have the work returned, and though the Miami auctioneers backed down, ‘Slave Labor’ did not find its way back to Haringey.” (click link above for full article)
(Via NYT > Art & Design.)