Lodo Minelli

Banksy, Keith Haring, Antony Micallef, Adam Neate, Faile, Paul Insect, Space Invader, Swoon, D*Face, Shepard Fairey

In a packed saleroom, more than 500 people watched the World’s first Urban Art sale take place at Bonhams in New Bond Street today – Tuesday 5 February 2008. As bids were relayed to the auctioneer of the evening, Pippa Stockdale, buyers battled to buy works by this new group of avant-garde artists. Exciting, fresh, edgy and challenging, interest for works was fever-pitch throughout the sale with 99% of the work selling - a truly extraordinary phenomenon that the market has never seen before. Many works by artists were met with a round of applause during the sale and cheers and more applause continued at the close of the sale.

Gareth Williams, specialist of the sale comments, ”We are delighted at the results of this sale. The Urban Art sale is unique in terms of the unprecedented media coverage, the phenomenal level of interest from buyers before the sale and the way that it has captured the public imagination. The results achieved are consistently strong across the board not only for blue chip artists such as Banksy and Keith Haring but also for emerging names whose works have not previously sold at auction. This shows that there is a growing market place for works of this nature and we are delighted to have held this pioneering sale.

Top prices in the sale :
Banksy ‘Laugh Now’ a large stencil spray paint on wood
Fetched: £228,000
Estimate: £150,000-200,000

Banksy, Untitled
Fetched: £98,400
Estimate: £40,000-60,000

Banksy, Kate Moss, screenprint
Fetched: 96,000
Estimate: £20,000-30,000

Nick Walker – Moona Lisa
Fetched: £54,000
Estimate £3,000-5,000

Adam Neate, ‘The Apprentice’
Fetched: £43,200
Estimate: £25,000-30,000

Banksy, Di-Faced Tenners
Fetched: £21,000
Estimate: £7,000-10,000

Dan Baldwin, The End of Everything
Fetched: £24,000
Estimate: £15,000-20,000

The auction focused on a series of artists inspired by the aesthetic of the street including but not limited to Banksy, Keith Haring, Dan Baldwin, Antony Micallef, Adam Neate, Faile, Paul Insect, Space Invader and D*Face. Their work was represented in mediums that are almost exclusive to this culture, such as stencil spray painting and flyposting.

Having secured international recognition by achieving exceptional prices for urban artists such as Banksy and Anthony Micallef, Bonhams is now the market leader in this field. Past results include Banksy’s ‘Space Girl and Bird’, designed as the artwork for Blur’s Think Tank album, which soared twenty times its estimate to fetch £288,000 in April 2007 – a world auction record for his work at the time.

Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world’s oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America and in August 2003, Goodmans, a leading Australian fine art and antiques auctioneer with salerooms in Sydney, joined the Bonhams Group of Companies. Today, Bonhams is the third largest and fastest growing auction house in the world with a global network of offices and regional representatives providing sales advice and valuation services in 20 countries. It offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further 10 throughout the UK.

Here all the lots and details.