MOBILE LOVERS
A man and woman embrace, all the while checking their mobile phones over one another’s shoulders in a typically ironic Banksy work which appeared on a youth club in Bristol in 2014.
Fortunately, it was painted on a piece of wood screwed to the wall of Broad Plain Boys’ Club in Clement Street. Club owner Dennis Stinchcombe sold it to a private buyer for £403,000, a move which secured the future of the cash-strapped club.
Although Banksy wrote to him saying he could sell it, Stinchcombe received death threats from locals who felt it should stay.
While arguments raged over its future, the artwork was kept in a police cell.
Showing a poor child stitching together Union Jack bunting, this artwork was popular with residents of Wood Green in North London when it appeared on the side of a Poundland store in 2012.
When it was put up for auction by the property owner in the United States with a guide price of £450,000, a Save Our Banksy campaign began. It was withdrawn from sale only to be auctioned in London for £750,000 and then resold to an American artist.
Following its removal, a stencil of a rat asking ‘Why’ appeared, conveying Banksy’s apparent anger.
A KEEPSAKE box containing Charles Darwin’s shells is being returned to the family home.
They were gathered by the naturalist on his BeagleVoyage, where his observations led him to develop his theory of evolution.
His descendants have donated the red leather container and its “treasures” to English Heritage, who will display it at what was Darwin’s home – Down House, in Kent.
Darwin and his wife Emma gave the box to their eldest daughter Annie, but when she died, aged 10 in 1851, it passed to her sister Henrietta, known as Etty.
She continued to fill it with souvenirs, including locks of hair belonging to members of the family, Darwin’s silk handkerchief and the shells.
His daughters labelled the objects using scrap paper from his draft manuscripts. It has been donated by Simon and Randal Keynes, the great-great-grandsons of Darwin.They said: “We are delighted to return this box to Down House.” Darwin lived there for 40 years until his death in 1882. It was where he wrote his 1859 masterpiece, On The Origin Of Species By Means of Natural Selection.
Museum curator Olivia Fryman said: “This will give visitors a valuable sense of Darwin’s work and the family who surrounded and supported him.”