If there’s one contemporary art world figure who can be relied upon to consistently rack up high prices, it’s Banksy: on Tuesday, Maddox Gallery sold Charlie Brown, a canvas made by the elusive graffiti artist for $4 million at an Art Miami VIP Preview, also reinforcing that the annual art extravaganza doesn’t even need to be in full swing for big sales to go through. This year, Maddox Gallery is also showing a number of other Banksys this year, including Keep it Real, Flower Thrower Original, Stretched Pulp Fiction and Rat at Heart. This makes it the largest exhibit of Banksy works from one gallery at Art Miami.
In years past, Art Basel Miami Beach has indirectly played host to an entire exhibition to Banksy: in 2018, Steve Lazarides, Banksy’s former art dealer, brought an unauthorized traveling exhibition of work including Banksy’s Flying Copper (2003) and Flower Thrower (2003) to Magic City Innovation Studios in Miami. The show coincided with Art Basel, but was not officially part of the main show.
Charlie Brown, the painting sold by Maddox Gallery this week, is a more or less typical entry in the Banksy canon: the artist has painted the beloved cartoon figure with a familiar smile, but Charlie is smoking a lit cigarette and kneeling over a carton of gasoline. The gallery is also offering the other works it brought by Banksy for between £500,000 and £5M. It’s a good time on the market for Banksy work: in October, the artwork that the artist famously shredded in front of an appalled audience in 2018 sold at auction at Sotheby’s for $21.9 million. Earlier, in 2020, the world auction record for a Banksy print was broken when the artist’s iconic image Balloon Girl – Colour AP (Purple), 2004, sold for £791,250 pounds ($1 million). Banksy is here to stay.