Banksy — Bomb Middle England (2002)

Everything Banksy is in this image: a group of pensioners absorbed in a placid game of bowls on the lawn — except that the spheres have been replaced by bombs with lit fuses. Made in 2002, in the years when the Bristol artist was moving from walls to paper and building the visual vocabulary that would make him the most recognisable name in urban art, Bomb Middle England takes aim at the muffled respectability of the English provinces: the upper middle class, the club sport, the propriety. Social satire in its purest form, delivered with the graphic immediacy of the stencil and the force of a manifesto.

This is a colour screenprint on paper, 35 × 100 cm, published in 2002 by Pictures on Walls, Banksy’s historic publishing house. The example belongs to the unsigned edition, numbered 344/500 and bearing the title. Condition is excellent: margins free of yellowing, no tears and no paper loss at the corners. It comes from a private collection in the United States and is accompanied by a Pest Control certificate of authenticity — the only body recognised for the authentication of the artist’s work, and an indispensable requirement for any secondary-market transaction.

The overall print run is contained: 50 signed examples, 500 unsigned and 31 artist’s proofs. Figures that, for one of the most desired subjects in Banksy’s graphic catalogue, have proved undersized against demand. More than twenty years after publication every auction season removes examples from the market, as impressions disappear into permanent collections or age at the corners and margins. An unsigned impression in this condition, complete with Pest Control, is exactly the profile collectors look for.