Created back in 2005, Banksy’s interpretation of Claude Monet’s water lily painting has been sold for more than £7.5m at an auction earlier this week. The painting titled Show Me The Monet was sold at a Sotheby’s event in London on Wednesday (October 21) following a tense nine-minute bidding war between five collectors.

As part of a series titled Crude Oil, which “remixes” canonical works, the painting depicts the impressionist painter’s famous garden scene, but with included abandoned shopping trolleys and a traffic cone, serving as “a voice of protest and social dissent,” Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s European head of contemporary art, said. “Here, Banksy shines a light on society’s disregard for the environment in favour of the wasteful excesses of consumerism.”

“In one of his most important paintings [that is currently the second most expensive Banksy painting sold at auction, after his nearly £10 million-worth painting Devolved Parliament], Banksy has taken Monet’s iconic depiction of the Japanese bridge in the Impressionist master’s famous garden at Giverny and transformed it into a modern-day fly-tipping spot,” Branczik explained.

Other works included in the Crude Oil series are a rendition of Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” dead in their vase, Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” circa an angry man in Union Jack boxer shorts, and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe replaced with Kate Moss.

Take a look at the painting above.

 

Posted by:Staff