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Banksy’s Girl and Balloon is heading to auction with an estimate of US $13 million to $18 million, bringing one of the artist’s most popular images back into focus at a moment when the Banksy market continues to gain populairty.
Banksy’s Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape. Image copyright Fair Warning auction
The 2012 work Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape will headline an upcoming Fair Warning auction and will be offered during an invite-only live auction at Tiffany & Co.’s flagship store in New York. The painting features Banksy’s iconic Girl with Balloon motif painted across a found alpine landscape painting.
Banksy’s Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape. Image copyright Fair Warning auction
Banksy’s Girl and Balloon and Crude Oils Series
The painting belongs to Banksy’s Crude Oils series, where second-hand landscapes and traditional paintings become surfaces for creativity, found at flea markets and given the Banksy treatment. Earlier works from the series introduced shopping carts, warning signs, and fragments of contemporary life into otherwise quiet pastoral scenes, disrupting romanticised visions of landscape with symbols of consumer culture and environmental collapse.
Banksy’s Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape. Image copyright Fair Warning auction
Here, the intervention feels quieter, a girl reaches toward the familiar red heart-shaped balloon while snow-covered mountains sit silently behind her. The restraint of the composition is also part of what has allowed the image to endure for more than two decades. The work compresses many of the themes that have come to define Banksy’s practice, combining iconography, irony, nostalgia, and collective memory within a single image.
Banksy’s Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape. Image copyright Fair Warning auction
How Girl with Balloon Became One of Banksy’s Most Recognisable Works
Since first appearing on the streets of London in 2002, Girl with Balloon has evolved far beyond graffiti culture to become one of the most recognisable contemporary artworks in the world.
Steve Lazarides – Balloon Fight (Flight)
The image has appeared across protest signs, fashion collaborations, social media, merchandise, and even Banksy’s migrant rescue vessel Louise Michel, where a version of the artwork was painted across the side of the boat in 2020.
Banksy’s rescue boat ‘MV Louise Michel’ saving lives of refugees in the Mediterranean. Photo courtesy of Louise Michel 2020
Its cultural reach deepened further in 2018 when a framed version of the work partially shredded moments after selling at Sotheby’s, later becoming Love Is in the Bin. The event quickly became one of the defining auction stories of the decade and helped cement Banksy’s position within the upper tier of the contemporary art market.
Banksy, Love is in the Bin, Auction Result. Image © Sotheby’s Auction House.
Banksy Auction Results Continue to Redefine the Contemporary Art Market
In 2021, Love Is in the Bin resold at Sotheby’s London for £18.5 million (US $25.4 million), several times higher than its original 2018 sale price. Other major works including Game Changer, Sunflowers From Petrol Station, Devolved Parliament, and Show Me The Monet have also achieved multi-million-dollar results in recent years.
Banksy, Show me the Monet, Auction Result. Image © Sotheby’s Auction House.
Fair Warning founder Loïc Gouzer recently compared Banksy’s rise to the delayed institutional acceptance surrounding Jean-Michel Basquiat, arguing that “the same pattern is playing out again.” Gouzer described Girl with Balloon in Found Landscape as “arguably Banksy’s strongest work” that “compresses icon, irony, and cultural memory into a single image.”
Reflecting on Banksy’s long-term position within contemporary art history, Gouzer added: “In twenty years, Banksy won’t just be accepted, he’ll be unavoidable.”
While comparisons of that scale remain speculative, they reflect the growing institutional and commercial confidence surrounding Banksy’s work.
Banksy, Sunflowers from Petrol Station, Auction Result. Image © Christie’s Auction House.
Against that backdrop, the US $13 million to $18 million estimate for Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape feels far less surprising than it once might have. More than twenty years after first appearing on a London wall, the image still feels immediate, which may explain why works like Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape continue to resonate far beyond the auction room.
Banksy’s Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape. Image copyright Fair Warning auction
The continued demand surrounding Banksy Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape reflects the image’s unusual position between street art, political symbol, and contemporary icon.
Discover Available Banksy Works at GraffitiStreet
Explore our curated selection of available Banksy artworks at our gallery in Chichester, England, browse the full selection online, or contact us directly for private enquiries and collector guidance.
Available works currently include Nola (Blue/Green), Grin Reaper, Trolleys (B&W), Stop & Search, and Soup Can (Banana/Lime/Purple) among other sought-after editions and collectables connected to key moments within Banksy’s practice.
GraffitiStreet Gallery, Chichester, England. Image copyright GraffitiStreet
Banksy – Choose Your Weapon (Khaki) (Framed). Copyright © GraffitiStreet
Please browse the full selection of Banksy’s editions and collectables online through GraffitiStreet.
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