Contemporary Art

For people who follow the art market, Banksy (b.1975) is now impossible to ignore.

Christie’s has announced that from this summer it will be renaming its Impressionist & Modern and Post-War & Contemporary sales.

Famous for the sort of graffiti that morphs into street art and critical acclaim, Banksy is now bringing in big money in the form of screenprints

While Banksy prints abound at auction, the number of original works that emerge is understandably much less.

A number of Banksy’s earlier prints from the early 2000s feature the subject of a rat.

Bonhams (27.5/25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) has been offering works by Banksy for some time now in a number of different sale types including Contemporary art auctions and specialist print offerings.

Among the Banksy works sold outside London recently was a screenprint of Trolleys that made £40,000 at Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) of Leyburn in North Yorkshire.

The live webcast auction of Urban and Contemporary art held by Tate Ward (25% buyer’s premium) on March 24 proved well timed, coming just a day after Christie’s sold Banksy’s 'Game Changer' for £14.4m.

This image of children swinging along a watch tower was part of Banksy’s ‘Walled Off’ project that relates to the West Bank barrier between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

An increasing number of salerooms are now holding specialist sales dedicated to Post-war and Contemporary art with demand at primary market level driving auction opportunities

Another auction house staging regular sales of Scottish Contemporary art is McTear’s of Glasgow, whose next auction in this category takes place on February 28.

James Perkins, the co-founder of rave music promoter Fantazia, kept an eclectic collection of Contemporary art at Aynhoe Park in Oxfordshire.

The largest contingent of works by British abstract painter John Blackburn (b.1932) ever to come to auction will be offered at Cheffins of Cambridge on February 25.

A large group of works from the collection of Allen and Beryl Freer has been consigned to Chiswick Auctions.

Frieze is opening No 9 Cork Street, an initiative housed in two converted townhouses that will accommodate visiting galleries throughout the year with a focus on Modern and Contemporary art.

Among the surprises at a Contemporary art sale at Ketterer (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich was the result for a work by the painter-poet Henri Michaux.

A drawing by Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) will be among the lots on offer at Sworders’ sale of Modern British & 20th Century art on April 20.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Legendary yarn explains how this material became a key component of the artist’s designs