Girl with Balloon
Silkscreen print
56 x 76 cm
Not For Sale
Girl with Balloon is probably Banksy’s most pop- ular image, voted in a 2017 survey promoted by Samsung as the British’s most beloved work. Banksy painted Girl with Balloon for the first time in 2004 as a stencil on the wall of a bridge in the Southbank neighbourhood in London. The artist signed the work on an electrical box, in the lower right-hand corner of the work, and accom- panied the image with the words, “There’s always hope.” In his book Wall and Piece, the artist added, “When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.” Another ver- sion of the stencil appeared in the London neigh- bourhood of Shoreditch, near the Liverpool Street station. The owners of the store where Banksy stencilled the artwork suggested detaching it from the wall to auction it off, but this sparked a wave of protest and the work was left alone. Ten years later, hidden behind an advertisement, an anony- mous group removed the stencil. The work reap- peared during the presentation of the exhibition Stealing Banksy? and was sold shortly thereafter.