Fair Warning to Auction Rare Banksy Painting with $18M Estimate

Fair Warning, the members-only online sales platform, will auction Banksy's 'Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape' (2012) on May 20 at Tiffany & Co.'s flagship store in New York. The work, consigned by a private collector, has never been publicly exhibited and carries an estimate of $13 million to $18 million. It belongs to Banksy's 'Crude Oils' series, which reimagines romantic landscapes with contemporary decay. The image of a girl with a red balloon is a recurring motif in Banksy's oeuvre, most famously in 'Love Is in the Bin' (2018), which sold for $25.4 million at Sotheby's London in 2021. Fair Warning founder Loïc Gouzer, a former Christie's executive who orchestrated the $450 million 'Salvator Mundi' sale, sees parallels between Banksy and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The live auction format is rare for Fair Warning, used only twice before, including the $16.7 million sale of an Andy Warhol portrait. The painting will be displayed at Tiffany's Fifth Avenue from May 7 alongside works by Damien Hirst, Daniel Arsham, and Anna Weyant. Gouzer cited the venue's proximity to Fair Warning's office as a factor in the choice.