A rare, hand-painted Banksy from the collection of blink-182’s co-founder and bassist, Mark Hoppus, will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on March 4. The painting, titled Crude Oil (Vettriano), has a high estimate of £5 million and will headline the house’s Modern and Contemporary evening sale.
Hoppus, who made three number one albums with the American rock band, will donate some of the funds raised by the painting to the California Fire Foundation and two Los Angeles medical charities in the wake of the devastating wildfires. They are the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and its Child Life Program, and Cedars Sinai Haematology Oncology Research.
He and his wife, Skye, purchased Crude Oil (Vettriano) in 2011.
“We loved this painting since the moment we saw it,” Hoppus said. “Unmistakably Banksy, but different. It’s born witness to our family over these past dozen years. It hung over the table in London where we at breakfast and our son did his homework. It hung in our living room in Los Angeles. It’s seen laughter and tears and parties and arguments.”
Crude Oil (Vettriano) featured in Bansky’s first conventional gallery show in 2005 in Notting Hill titled “Crude Oils: A Gallery of Re-mixed Masterpieces, Vandalism, and Vermin.” The work is a re-imagining of Scottish artist Jack Vettriano’s 1992 painting, The Singing Butler. At the exhibition it was hung alongside a wilted, bloomless version of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a take on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, and a satirical riff on Claude Monet’s water garden at Giverny.
“This isn’t just an iconic Banksy, it is a Banksy that has been treasured by music legend Mark Hoppus, who fell for this work for its rebellious spirit, raw edge, and unfiltered expression – the fundamentals that also shaped Mark’s world: punk culture,” Sotheby’s Europe chairman, Oliver Barker, said. “Street art and punk rock share the same vocabulary – they speak to the outsider, the rebel, and the overlooked. Both movements were born from the margins.”
Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening sale also includes works by Pablo Picasso, Yoshimoto Nara, Anthony Gormley, and Roy Lichtenstein.
