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### 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.

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Love is in the Bin, 2018 | Sotheby's, London

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Game Changer, 2020 | Christie's, London

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Sunflowers from Petrol Station, 2005 | Christie's, New York

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Devolved Parliament, 2009 | Sotheby's, London

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Show Me the Monet, 2005 | Sotheby's, London

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Banksy is an anonymous British street artist associated with Bristol, known for stencilled images that turn political and social satire into public art. His spray-painted rats, children and police officers appear without warning on walls from London to Kyiv, and he usually confirms new pieces with a post on his Instagram account. The same images circulate as screenprints, alongside canvases, sculpture and projects he has staged himself, including a seaside theme park and a hotel facing the West Bank barrier. He has never confirmed his identity.

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.

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