Buy & Sell Banksy Art
About Banksy
Bristol and the stencil
Banksy came out of Bristol's graffiti scene in the 1990s, reportedly first painting as part of the DryBreadZ crew. He moved early from freehand lettering to stencils, which let an image go up in minutes and be repeated across a city. The work still carries the marks of that method: flat, high-contrast figures, a short caption or none, and an idea that can be read from across the street. He was reportedly working in London by the end of the decade. Anonymity has been part of the practice throughout, and he has never confirmed any of the names the press has published for him. His office, Pest Control, set up in 2008, is the only point of contact.
From walls to paper
From the early 2000s the London publisher Pictures on Walls issued his images as screenprints, among them Girl With Balloon, Love Is In The Air (the flower thrower, first stencilled on a wall in Jerusalem in 2003) and a long line of rats. The prints took the street image indoors at a fraction of the cost of a painting. Pictures on Walls stopped trading at the end of 2017. Canvases, works on cardboard and sculpture have run alongside the prints, often reusing the same figures at a larger scale.
Shows on his own terms
Rather than following the usual gallery route, Banksy has repeatedly built his own venues. Barely Legal filled a Los Angeles warehouse for three days in September 2006, with a live painted elephant standing in a living-room set. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), a documentary credited to him, took the street-art world to cinema audiences. In October 2013 Better Out Than In put a new work on the streets of New York every day for a month.
In 2015 he turned the former Tropicana site at Weston-super-Mare into Dismaland, a dystopian "bemusement park" with work by around 50 artists, Damien Hirst among them. About 150,000 people visited in five weeks, and when it closed its timber and fittings were sent to Calais to build shelters. Two years later he opened The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, a few metres from the West Bank barrier, its rooms decorated with his work. It closed after October 2023 and reopened in December 2025 with more than 20 of his works still in place.
The saleroom and the street
On 5 October 2018, moments after Girl With Balloon sold at Sotheby's in London, a shredder hidden in its frame cut part of the canvas into strips. Banksy posted a video explaining that he had built the shredder into the painting years earlier. Pest Control certified the result as a new work, Love is in the Bin, and Sotheby's later dated it to the night of the sale.
The street work has continued alongside, often tied to the news. In November 2022 he confirmed seven works in Ukraine, including a gymnast balanced on rubble in Borodyanka. Over nine days in August 2024 a different animal appeared somewhere in London each morning, ending with a gorilla on a shutter at London Zoo. In September 2025 a judge beating a protester with a gavel appeared on the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice and was scrubbed off within about two days. In April 2026 he claimed a statue of a suited man blinded by a flag at Waterloo Place, which Westminster Council chose to leave standing.
Girl with Balloon, 2002
Collector & Guidance
Buying a Banksy
Pest Control decides what is genuine
Pest Control is the only body that authenticates Banksy's work. Major auction houses will not offer a Banksy without its certificate of authenticity, and they do not accept one promised later. Treat the certificate as part of the work. Check that its details match the piece in front of you, and before paying, ask the seller to take part in Pest Control's Check Before You Buy service, which confirms that an existing certificate is genuine and belongs to that work. Older certificates carry half of a torn spoof £10 note, with Pest Control keeping the matching half. A newer design was introduced around 2020, and Pest Control swaps an old certificate for a new one when a work goes through its checking or change-of-ownership services. Forged certificates circulate, so the paperwork needs checking as carefully as the print.
Screenprints, signed and unsigned
Most Banksy screenprints were published by Pictures on Walls between the early 2000s and 2017, often in two versions of the same image: a smaller edition signed in pencil and a larger unsigned one. Both are genuine and both can be certified; the signed version costs considerably more. Girl With Balloon, for example, was issued as 150 signed and 600 unsigned impressions, plus artist's proofs with the balloon in other colours, which sit above both. Check that the edition number fits the stated edition size and that the signature or its absence matches the version you are being offered.
A Pictures on Walls receipt helps a work's history but proves nothing on its own: forgers caught selling fake prints online in a case brought by the Metropolitan Police in 2009 supplied fake receipts with them. Pest Control has also warned that some high-quality fake prints, dated around 2003, are in circulation.
Canvases, cardboard and sculpture
For unique works and small editions, ask for the Pest Control certificate first, then for the work's ownership history and any exhibition record. Pest Control can decline a work it judges was not made for sale, however convincing the image, and it does not certify street art at all.
Hotel, shop and park souvenirs
The Walled Off Hotel (Box Set), an open-edition print sold with a piece of concrete wall, usually changes hands with the original hotel receipt rather than a Pest Control certificate, so the receipt and the box are its paperwork. Items from Gross Domestic Product, Banksy's 2019 online shop, were sold one per buyer, and Pest Control held back their certificates for two years; certified examples now sell at major auction houses, so ask whether the certificate has been issued. Pest Control issued no certificates for Dismaland, and in 2024 Spanish police broke up a ring selling fakes described as Dismaland pieces with forged paperwork. Banksy does not license his images, and Pest Control says merchandise that looks like his is almost certainly not genuine.
Selling a Banksy
Have the Pest Control certificate in hand before you list. If your work does not have one, apply to Pest Control first, with everything you know about the work's history. Its terms allow it to keep a work it judges not authentic and to pass information to the Metropolitan Police, and it can revise an opinion later.
For a screenprint, photograph the front, the signature or the unsigned margin, the edition number, the back and both sides of the certificate. Give the title, the edition and whether your impression is signed, unsigned or a proof, and include any original purchase receipt or order email you still have, such as one from Pictures on Walls.
For a canvas, a work on cardboard or a sculpture, add the dimensions, the condition, how and when you acquired it and any exhibition history.
For a Walled Off Hotel box set or other souvenir, include the hotel receipt and the original box and packaging. Once a certified work sells, Pest Control's Change of Ownership service registers the new owner; the buyer, the seller and the registered owner all take part.
Recognition
- One of his Di Faced Tenners (2004) is held in the collection of the British Museum, London, given by Pest Control in 2019.
- Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Exit Through the Gift Shop, 83rd Academy Awards, 2011.
- His Peckham Rock (2005) shown in I Object: Ian Hislop's Search for Dissent, British Museum, London, 2018 to 2019.
- Solo exhibition, Banksy versus Bristol Museum, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, 2009.
Market & Collectability
The highest price paid for a Banksy at auction is £18,582,000 for Love is in the Bin (2018), the partly shredded canvas, at Sotheby's London on 14 October 2021. Game Changer (2020), an oil on canvas sold for NHS charities, made £16,758,000 at Christie's London in March 2021. Among recent sales of major canvases, Love Is In The Air (Life Size) (2011), in spray paint and oil, made about £6.4 million at Sotheby's London in June 2026, and Crude Oil (Vettriano) (2005) about £4.3 million there in March 2025.
Small editions and works on cardboard form the next tier. Happy Choppers (2006), a canvas numbered 1 from an edition of 3, sold for £1,520,000 at Phillips London in March 2026, and Smiling Copper (2003), spray paint on cardboard from an unnumbered edition, made £122,550 at Phillips in June 2026.
Most collectors meet the market through screenprints, where the title and whether the print is signed matter most. A signed Kate (Original), the original colourway of his Kate Moss screenprint, numbered 26 from an edition of 50, sold for £107,950 at Phillips London in June 2025, while a signed Stop & Search from an edition of 500 made £23,220 there in January 2026. Two unsigned impressions of Girl With Balloon, from an edition of 600, made £82,550 in June 2025 and £109,650 in September 2026 at Phillips, and an unsigned Love Is In The Air, from an edition of 500, made £24,510 in June 2026.
The entry level is made up of souvenirs and shop items. A Walled Off Hotel (Box Set) sold for £604 at Roseberys London in February 2025, a pair of Di Faced Tenners for £3,149, and two cushions from Gross Domestic Product for £7,216, both at Roseberys in February 2026.
Print prices rose steeply in 2020 and fell back from late 2021, returning close to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2023, so results from those years are a poor guide to today's prices. Compare like with like: unique or editioned, the title, signed or unsigned, the edition size and whether Pest Control has certified the work. Every price quoted here includes buyer's premium.
NOTABLE AUCTION RESULTS
Love is in the Bin, 2018 | Sotheby's, London
FAQS
Who is Banksy?
Banksy has never confirmed his identity. Several news organisations have published names for the artist, most recently Reuters in a March 2026 investigation that also described a small circle of collaborators. Banksy's lawyer responded that the artist does not accept many of the details reported, and neither Banksy nor Pest Control has confirmed or denied the identification. FairArt does not repeat the names.