Sold! Flower Girl by Banksy
Gas station mural fetches $209,000
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. — A mural stencilled on the side of a Hollywood gas station five years ago by the British street artist Banksy has fetched more than $200,000 at a Beverly Hills auction.
T he 3-by-2 .4-met re Flower Girl artwork sold for $209,000 on Thursday at an auction that featured nearly 100 works by more than 30 artists, according to the Los Angeles Times. The winning bid came from a Los Angeles buyer who requested anonymity.
The mural shows a little girl holding a flower basket under the eye of a surveillance camera planted atop a tall stalk.
The seller of the mural was former gas station owner Eytan Rosenberg, who had allowed a group of three street artists to paint something on its white wall.
Rosenberg sold the gas station last year and painstakingly removed the artwork, then installed it in a sturdy aluminum frame. He and his sister want to use the money from the sale to build a car wash.
Banksy, who refuses to reveal his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England. He is known for his silhouetted figures and spray-painted messages.
The highest known price for a Banksy work is about $1.1 million for a mural called Slave Labour that was auctioned in London in June. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie recently bought a smaller piece of Banksy’s work for $1 million.