A painting by Banksy depicting British parliamentarians as chimpanzees sold at Sotheby’s, London for £9.8 million including fees on 2 October. The four-metre wide Devolved Parliament (2009) smashed its high estimate of £2 million and set a new record for the street artist, who caused a sensation at the same evening sale last year when a drawing appeared to ‘self-destruct’ after the hammer fell on the work.
The prices for the work was matched by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Pyro (1984), leading Sotheby’s senior director Alex Branczik to declare that ‘tonight was unequivocally about street artists who’ve made it into art history’.
3 October 2019
