Banksy - 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale Hong Kong Tuesday, June 21, 2022 | Phillips

20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale

Hong Kong Auction 21 June 2022

  • “So much intrigue surrounds the man: about his identity, for sure (for we all love a mystery), but also around his art, and a sharp strain of humour within it that speaks to people quickly and crisply.”
    — Steve Wright

     

     Although his identity remains a mystery, Bristol-born Banksy’s provocative stencil artworks are among the most iconic and widely recognisable images in existence. From his early days ‘bombing’ the walls of his hometown as part of the graffiti scene inspired by pioneers like Bleck le rat in the early 1990s, Banksy’s now-instantly identifiable art has conquered city streets and buildings around the world, from Paris through to New York. Beyond his street-art interventions, Banksy’s studio practice is equally celebrated, with an auction record of £18.5 million (USD 25.4 million) set in 2021, Academy-Award nominated documentary (2010), dystopian hotel (The Walled-Off Hotel in Bethlehem), and pop-up ‘bemusement park’ titled Dismaland (2015), all to his name.

     

    Executed in 2008, Abe Lincoln is one of Banksy’s most iconic images, stemming from a small series of three unique variations, each painted on cardboard. Rare to the market, this marks the first time an Abe Lincoln work has appeared at auction since 2018.


     

     Banksy, Abraham Lincoln, New Orleans, August 2008
    Image Courtesy of Nathan Parker

     

    In 2008, Banksy paid a visit to New Orleans in the United States following the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina three years prior. Leaving behind a trail of tags and trademark stencils, Banksy used the still-tattered streets and buildings as a backdrop for his poetic yet poignant critiques of the slow pace of reconstruction by officials.  One of the works he created was a stencilled rendering of former U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln. Spray-painted onto the wall of a damaged building at a major intersection, the site has since been demolished to make way for a healthcare facility.

     

    Using the same stencil he would then employ for the three Abe Lincoln works on cardboard, including the present composition, Banksy’s site-specific version portrayed Lincoln as displaced person living on the streets, pushing a trolley full of possessions. Lincoln was the great figurehead of the emancipation movement which liberated the slaves of the Southern Sates, and in depicting Lincoln in a such a poorly advantaged position, Banksy showcases his sharp sense of satire in highlighting the shortcomings of Lincoln’s political descendants.

     

     

     

    Abraham Lincoln photographed by Alexander Gardner during the Battle of Antietam, 1862

     

     

    As one of the first American presidents to make use of photography to promote his image, in the years leading up to his first presidential election, photographs of Lincoln were widely disseminated to counter rumours of his unusual height and supposed ugliness, instead giving the candidate a more human aspect. Here, Banksy transforms the famous face of ‘Honest Abe’ into a ghoulish presence with pupil-less, ghostly eyes, overlayed by acid-green spots. Deflating the reverence that often surrounds Lincoln’s legacy, Banksy instead exhibits his satirical humour in taking the former president’s image and instead presenting him with comical, uncanny features, rendered in the artist’s signature graphic style.

     

    “As soon as I cut my first stencil I could feel the power there. I also like the political edge. All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.”
    — Banksy

     

    Detail of the present work

     

    Now placed at the forefront of an artistic movement that has inspired generations to come, works by Banksy form part of prestigious public collections including the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His iconoclast status as a vandal turned mythic hero has extended the street-art genre to a new horizon as he continues to redefine to many what ‘art’ is.

     

    • Provenance

      Private Collection (acquired directly from the artist in 2008)
      Sotheby's, New York, 9 March 2011, lot 91
      Private Collection
      Christie's, London, 24 September 2013, lot 158
      Private Collection, Hong Kong
      Phillips, Hong Kong, 25 November 2018, lot 27
      Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

    • Artist Biography

      Banksy

      British • 1975 - N/A

      Anonymous street artist Banksy first turned to graffiti as a miserable fourteen year old disillusioned with school. Inspired by the thriving graffiti community in his home city, Bristol, Banksy's works began appearing on trains and walls in 1993, and by 2001 his blocky, spray-painted works had cropped up all over the United Kingdom. Typically crafting his images with spray paint and cardboard stencils, Banksy is able to achieve a meticulous level of detail. His aesthetic is clean and instantly readable due to his knack for reducing complex political and social statements to simple visual elements.

      His graffiti, paintings and screenprints use whimsy and humour to satirically critique war, capitalism, hypocrisy and greed — with not even the Royal family safe from his anti-establishment wit.

      View More Works

Property of an Important Asian Collector

152

Banksy

Abe Lincoln

signed with the artist's initial and inscribed '☮ Ⓑ ♡ ⁜' lower right
spray paint on cardboard
89.9 x 62 cm. (35 3/8 x 24 3/8 in.)
Executed in 2008, this work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Pest Control.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
HK$2,000,000 - 3,000,000 
€242,000-363,000
$256,000-385,000

Sold for HK$2,772,000

Contact Specialist

Danielle So
Specialist, Head of Day Sale
+852 2318 2027
danielleso@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale

Hong Kong Auction 21 June 2022