'Sunflowers from Petrol Station' by Banksy, 2005
Based on the artist's original oil on canvas in artist's frame from 2005.
Sold at Christie’s, New York, November 9, 2021 for USD $14,558,000.
6 x 4 Inches
15.2 x 10.2 Centimeters
10 x 8 x 0.8 Inches (framed)
Rare original lithograph post card.
Offset lithograph print on cardstock.
Open Edition (Sold Out).
Very good original condition - artwork details on reverse.
*Note: Float-framed in UV glass with black (or white) MDF frame molding.
ABOUT THE ART
Held for its entire life in the collection of legendary British fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, 'Sunflowers from Petrol Station' is an icon within Banksy’s oeuvre.
Witty, irreverent and subversive, it offers a wry reimagining of Vincent Van Gogh’s celebrated Sunflowers, transforming the Dutch master’s radiant yellow blooms into a cluster of dried, wilted stems. Against a backdrop of thickly-wrought impasto, dead petals accumulate around the base of the vase, which bears the artist’s name—in place of Van Gogh’s—in blue lettering.
A rare and exquisitely rendered example of Banksy’s coveted hand-painted oils, the work formed part of the artist’s seminal 2005 exhibition Crude Oils: A Gallery of Re-mixed Masterpieces, Vandalism and Vermin in London. There, it took its place alongside other art-historical re-workings by Banksy, including Show me the Monet—a parody of Claude Monet’s Japanese Bridge paintings—as well as alternative versions of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and Jack Vettriano’s The Singing Butler.
Acquired by Smith directly from the exhibition, it is an outstanding demonstration of Banksy’s virtuosity as a painter, and his acerbic flair as a satirist. Through the comedic pathos of withered petrol station flowers—a modern-day memento mori—the artist implicates the pollution of both art and nature at the hands of consumerism: neither, he warns, will last forever in its clutches.