Tribute that adds abandoned shopping trollies to the impressionist image of water lilies to be sold at Sothebyâs auction
Street artist Banksyâs version of Claude Monetâs impressionist masterpiece will go on sale at Sothebyâs London gallery for an estimated £3-5m.
The painting, called Show me the Monet, was created in 2005. It is framed around Monetâs famous water lilies picture but is filled with jarring images of upside-down shopping trolleys and a traffic cone bobbing in the water.
Sothebyâs will sell the oil-on-canvas work for between £3m and £5m (US$3.9 million to US$6.5m) estimates suggest. It will go on sale at a livestreamed auction in London on 21 October.
The painting will appear for a two-day preview on Friday before it is unveiled in New York and Hong Kong later this month. It will then return to London where it will go on sale.
Show me the Monet was first shown 15 years ago as part of Banksyâs second gallery exhibition in London.
It hails from a series collectively known as the Crude Oils, which include what Banksy has termed âremixesâ of canonical artworks. In it, the artist takes and subverts the language of art history to recreate renowned artworks with his own style. Among them, Vincent van Goghâs Sunflowers portrayed wilting or dead in their vase; Edward Hopperâs Nighthawks augmented by an angry man in Union Jack boxer shorts moments after breaking the bar window with a chair and Andy Warholâs Marilyn Monroe re-faced with Kate Moss.
Three of Monetâs most spectacular large paintings from this series will also be brought together at the National Gallery in London for the first exhibition of decorative arts by the impressionist painters in September 2021.
Alex Branczik, Sothebyâs European head of contemporary art, said: âIn one of his most important paintings, Banksy has taken Monetâs iconic depiction of the Japanese bridge in the impressionist masterâs famous garden at Giverny and transformed it into a modern-day fly-tipping spot. More canal than an idyllic lily pond, Banksy litters Monetâs composition with discarded shopping trollies and a fluorescent orange traffic cone.
âEver prescient as a voice of protest and social dissent, here Banksy shines a light on societyâs disregard for the environment in favour of the wasteful excesses of consumerism.
âRecent years have seen seminal Banksys come to auction, but this is one of his strongest, and most iconic, to appear yet. From Love is in the Bin, to the record-breaking Devolved Parliament, to this take on Monet, October just wouldnât be complete without a big Banksy moment.â
Last October Banksyâs Devolved Parliament, which depicted MPs in the House of Commons as chimpanzees, sold for £9.9m in what organisers said was a record for the artist.