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Overview
'If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask.' —Banksy
The anonymous street artist, painter, and social activist Banksy has shaken up the art world with his distinctive oeuvre characterised by dark humour, satire and political commentary. Inspired by the thriving street art scene in his home city of Bristol, Banksy’s works started appearing on trains and city streets as early as 1993. Spray paint and cardboard stencils allowed the artist to achieve a meticulous level of detail with speed, keeping him safely beyond the reach of law enforcement. His painting Gas Mask Boy, portraying a crouched figure whose respirator mask reflects the ethereal vision of a blooming field, contains some of the conceptual paradoxes the artist has become most known and recognised for, including the dichotomy between air toxicity and landscape purity, a subject of resounding relevance in today’s escalating climate crisis. Beside the young protagonist is the spray painted outline of a flower — perhaps the boy’s attempt at painting a meadow, as reflected on his mask.
Detail of the present work. The Gas Mask
'Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.' —BanksyParticularly poignant in the present work, the gas mask has been a recurring symbol in Banksy’s iconography. Evidently a tool to disguise his likeness (Banksy has, to this day, still not been visually identified), the mask furthermore contains fringe associations that transform it into a message of subversion in itself. First appearing during the Great War, the respirator mask symbolised the threat of both chemical and biological warfare, the destruction of the environment and the extreme lengths humanity will go to when waging war. In recent culture, the object has been used by state law enforcers during demonstrations, and thus come to embody notions of unrest, rioting, but also government control and oppression. Banksy channels all these ideas in his compositions, melding them into a single, easily understandable image that is immediately striking upon first encounter. In Gas Mask Boy, the artists aims his critique at the policing of graffiti art on an elementary level, but also at the environmental damage imposed upon younger generations, which might lead them to eventually lose sight of flowering meadows and be forced into masks for sanitary protection.
Otto Dix, Stormtroops advancing under gas, 1924, etching and aquatint, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, United Kingdom. Image: Bridgeman Images. © DACS 2021. Subliminal Escapism
Piercing through Banksy’s trademark use of greyscale (which, in public installations frequently incorporates the white or grey hue of the wall itself), the meadow projected onto the surface of the young boy’s mask in the present work features the most vibrant of blues, greens, and yellows, rendering an idealised image of sky and land. The chromatic spread appears embellished, almost false — like those one would find in old pieces of advertising, concealing subliminal messages of freedom, insouciance and happiness. The image is also redolent of seminal artistic renderings of perfectly lit fields — like Claude Monet’s Effect of Spring, Giverny from 1890— but also of filmic interpretations of carefree, elated moments filled with music and synaesthetic beauties, namely Robert Wise’s 1965 The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews. In Gas Mask Boy, the meadow’s immaculate pictorial qualities sit in stark contrast to the remainder of the composition. They suggest notions of hope and escapism — forming an impossible daydream that all other visual elements eventually force back into reality.
Left: Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music, 1965, directed By Robert Wise. Image: © Robert Wise Productions/Argyle Enterprises/Twentieth Century Fox / Diltz / Bridgeman Images.
Right: Claude Monet, Effects of Spring, Giverny, 1890, oil on canvas, Private Collection. Image: © Lefevre Fine Art Ltd., London / Bridgeman Images.The Power of Banksy
Drawing on recognisable visual imagery, Banksy subverts icons of cultural fantasy and products of capitalism to uncover disquieting truths regarding globalisation, exploitation and the mass media’s normalisation of violence. The elusive artist’s stealthy presence has not stopped him from becoming a global phenomenon. Hijacking some of the world’s most respected museums and galleries with deceptive works masquerading as legitimate institutional offerings, one such work included a caveman rock drawing that has now found its way into the permanent collection of the British Museum. It is rare that a creative outlaw like Banksy has been so fully embraced by the art world establishment. With graffiti, performances, covert incursions — most recently at the 2019 Venice Biennale — and more than 10 million followers watching his every move on Instagram, Banksy has established himself as an unstoppable cultural force.
Provenance
Private Collection, United Kingdom (acquired directly from the artist)
Acquired from the above by the present ownerArtist 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.
Property from an Important Private Collection, The Netherlands
Ο◆21
Gas Mask Boy
signed 'BANKSY' lower right; dedicated 'For H' lower left
spray paint and oil on wood
92.5 x 72 cm (36 3/8 x 28 3/8 in.)
Executed in 2009, this work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Pest Control.
Estimate
£1,800,000 - 2,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £2,200,500
Rosanna Widén
Senior Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
+ 44 20 7318 4060
rwiden@phillips.com
Olivia Thornton
Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe
+ 44 20 7318 4099
othornton@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
London Auction 15 April 2021
1
Joy Labinjo
Untitled
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡♠
Sold for £69,300
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2
Lina Iris Viktor
Constellations III
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠
Sold for £195,300
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3
This lot is no longer available.
4
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
Sold for £466,200
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5
Toyin Ojih Odutola
LTS IV
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £378,000
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6
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones
Love Ritual
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡♠
Sold for £151,200
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7
Jordan Casteel
Quinn
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
Sold for £233,100
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8
Mickalene Thomas
Clarivel Right
Estimate £220,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £315,000
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9
Matthew Wong
Two Women
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡
Sold for £954,200
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10
Alberto Giacometti
Nu debout II
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ‡
Sold for £1,813,300
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11
Jean Dubuffet
La féconde journée
Estimate £1,500,000 - 2,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £4,378,500
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12
François-Xavier Lalanne
Chouette de Tourtour
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 Ω♠
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13
Frank Stella
Scramble: Ascending Spectrum / Ascending Green Values
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £2,866,000
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14
El Anatsui
Plot a Plan IV
Estimate £650,000 - 850,000 ‡
Sold for £942,100
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15
Mark Rothko
Untitled (Black Blue Painting)
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡
Sold for £2,866,000
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16
Lucas Arruda
Untitled
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £170,100
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17
Andy Warhol
One Grey / Black Marilyn (Reversal Series) II-50-160
Estimate £700,000 - 900,000
Sold for £733,650
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18
Marcel Duchamp
L.H.O.O.Q.
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £491,400
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19
Grayson Perry
Me Wanking Off
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
Sold for £126,000
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20
Banksy
Love is in the Air
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £441,000
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21
Banksy
Gas Mask Boy
Estimate £1,800,000 - 2,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £2,200,500
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22
Marino Marini
Piccolo cavaliere
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡♠
Sold for £352,800
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23
This lot is no longer available.
24
Paula Rego
The Aunt (Nada)
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ♠
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25
Ed Ruscha
Oxides
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡
Sold for £748,500
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26
Mark Tansey
Study for Nocturne
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £748,500
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27
John Currin
Girl in Bed
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ‡
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28
Josef Albers
Study for Homage to the Square: Hard, Softer, Soft Edge
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £327,600
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29
John Chamberlain
Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £478,800
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30
Carmen Herrera
Aquila Verde
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ‡
Sold for £724,300
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31
Günther Förg
Untitled
Estimate £380,000 - 450,000 ‡♠
Sold for £516,600
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32
Albert Oehlen
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡♠
Sold for £415,800
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33
Gilbert & George
Dusty Corners No. 8
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡♠
Sold for £252,000
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34
Tracey Emin
Our Angels
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £226,800
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35
Cory Arcangel
Photoshop CS: 110 by 72 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient "Spectrum", mousedown y=9900 x=3450, mouseup y=990 x=21450
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
Sold for £245,700
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