I am selling this piece of Banksy art history.
Riot Police drawing and artist letters.
Banksy 3 works - pencil on paper. Circa 2002/3
Rare drawing "Riot Police" and 2 handwritten Banksy letters with unique insight to the
artist’s way of marketing his own brand in the early days - pre Lazarides.
Provenance. Mr James Allen, Antwerp, Belgium.
Gary Clive Mitchell - Former owner of TomTom Gallery (later artrepublic). Banksy gift to the above.
He had a shop at the time called Punk Daisy.
Exhibited at the Vanina Holasek / Bankrobber London show in NYC Dec 2nd-29th 2007. Full page in the catalogue. Listed as "Tom Tom" Piece work 2004 (but 2002/3 is more likely).
The drawing shows a window display formulated for a Banksy show at TomTom Gallery in London (Banksys gallery
at the time), with ideas for the window graphics/paint/artwork incorporating "Fuck the Police" and Banksy as well as. An early example of his now iconic signature.
CND signs and a riot policeman or protester/vandal.
One sheet of text is an artist biography written in a typical Banksy tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating manner where
amongst other things he describes himself as "rapidly establishing a reputation as Britain´s least wanted artist.
He also adds in an addendum that he does not "condone vandalism or any other form of illegal activity" pre-emting
any admission of graffiti/illegal activity.
The show never materialised at TomTom but was to take another much larger form at the infamous "Turf War" show
in Dalston (East London) in 2003. How ever a photo exists where a copper can be seen at the actual window display at Tom Tom Gallery back then. See last photo.
Original text from first owner:
3 works, pencil on paper ca. 2002/2003
The drawing shows a window display formulated for a Banksy show at TomTom Gallery in London (Banksy´s gallery at the time),
with ideas for window graphics/paint/rtwork (incorporating "fuck da Police" and "Banksy" as well as CND signs and possibly a riot policeman or protestor/vandal).
One sheet ot text outlines a manifesto for the show, "B.O.G.O.F.F." (Buy One Get One For Free), where Banksy states that if you buy a Banksy painting he will install a similar one in a central London location and the buyer will also receive a signed photo of the piece installed in a public place.
One sheet of text is an artist "biography" written in a typical Banksy tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating manner where amongst other things he describes himself as "rapidly establishing a reputation as Britain´s least wanted artist". He also adds in an addendum that he does not condone vandalism or any other form of illegal activity, pre-empting admission of grafitti/illegal activity.
The show never materialised at TomTom but was to take another much larger form at the infamous "turf War" show in Dalston (East London) in 2003.
Provenance:
Mr James Allen, Antwerpen, Belgium (founder of Red Snapper Books, of Cecil Court in London)
He had a shop at the time in London called Punk Daisy. Allen was one ot the founders of Vermin.
Gary former owner of TomTom gallery
Banksy gift to the above.
The works are accompanied by the original hard back catalogue (very rare) from Vanina Holasek and Bankrobber London. The works depicted in the catalogue.
Also dcepicted on Urbanartassociation. Se photo.
Text from Banksyarchive:
Banksy’s 2003 show Turf War took place in an abandoned warehouse in Dalston, London. Casting the die for the scale and ambition of projects to follow. But the Turf War show grew from humble beginnings. In 2002 Banksy was in talks with the TomTom galley in London about putting on a show in their bijou gallery in Covent Garden. The above sketch (Photo 1) was his proposal for a window display at the gallery. A mannequin dressed as a riot police officer flanked by two large peace signs obscures a slogan written on the back wall of the gallery. Looking straight on the obscured slogan reads aggressively as “..uck tha police”. But, if the viewer shifts their position the entire - more supportive - slogan is revealed: “Good luck to tha police”, making sense of the peace signs. The TomTom show didn’t happen, but the plan for a London show grew, incorporating the proposed TomTom window display into what would become the much more ambitious Turf War show the following year.
Exhibitions
Exhibited at Vanina Holasek Gallery - NYC. Full page in the catalogue.
Exhibited at Still Kicking Gallery ca 2016.
Exhibited at Læsø Kunsthal - Summer 2019 - "The Political Art".
Only serious offers over 100.000 GBP thanks. A much better investment than printed multiples that are basically signed sheets of printed paper. The works will feature in the soon to be released Banksy Raisonne.
