pop star
Robbie Williams has three Banksy paintings up for auction
Singer Robbie Williams has a private art collection. Photo: Georg Wendt/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
When he’s not holding a microphone, he obviously enjoys looking at Banksy art, but now singer Robbie Williams wants to auction three works from his private collection.
British pop star Robbie Williams has three works by mysterious artist Banksy auctioned off on Wednesday.
The works belong to the 48-year-old musician’s private collection and, according to auction house Sotheby’s, have an estimated total value of 7 to 10 million pounds (about 8 to 12 million euros).
This also counts for the picture “Kissing Coppers”, which first appeared on the outside wall of a pub in the city of Brighton in 2004 and showed two police officers kissing. “Following repeated vandalism, the original mural was removed in 2014,” the auction house said. A version of the picture produced by Banksy in 2005 on canvas is now being auctioned.
A version of “Girl With Balloon” painted on metal is also to be auctioned. The motif gained notoriety when another version of the image was shredded by a built-in mechanism in the frame at a Sotheby’s auction in 2018 shortly after the bid was accepted. The third Banksy painting Williams is selling is “Vandalised Oils (Choppers)”. It shows two armed helicopters flying over a peaceful landscape.
As part of the evening auction for modern and contemporary art, which is also taking place today, the painting “L’Empire des Lumieres” by René Magritte (1898-1967) will be auctioned off – the value is estimated at more than 45 million pounds. It was reportedly created in 1961 for Magritte’s close friend, Baroness Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet. She was the daughter of Magritte’s patron, the Belgian surrealism collector Pierre Crowet. According to the auction house, the picture has been in the family since then.