Yahoo Finance Banksy donates paintings worth up to £1.2m to raise money for hospital
Banksy has donated a collection of paintings to raise money for a hospital in Bethlehem.
The works, referencing the European migrant crisis, are estimated to fetch between £800,000 and £1.2 million.
Titled Mediterranean Sea View 2017, the triptych is made up of 19th century-style Romantic seascapes scattered with abandoned life jackets and buoys.
This modern twist is a solemn nod to the deaths of migrants travelling to the EU during the 2010s.
The framed oil paintings were created for Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, where they have hung since its opening in 2017.
The hotel, which overlooks the West Bank wall dividing Bethlehem, bills itself as having “the worst view of any hotel in the world” and is filled with original Banksy artwork.
The piece will feature in Sotheby’s Rembrandt to Richter cross-category evening sale on July 28.
Proceeds will be used to help build a new acute stroke unit and buy children’s rehabilitation equipment for Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation.
Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for Europe, said: “In Mediterranean Sea View 2017, Banksy corrupts three found oil paintings with his own witty reworkings to create something that, while posing as a 19th-century seascape, spotlights one of the burning issues of the 21st century."
He continued: “In Rembrandt to Richter, this triptych hangs in Sotheby’s galleries alongside works by some of history’s greatest landscape painters, including Bellotto, Van Goyen and Turner.
“Banksy’s work, however, stands alone for its potent political message.”
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