Banksy’s Next Major Auction Test Will Take Place at Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue
Fair Warning is bringing one of Banksy’s most closely watched paintings to New York in a setting that is as unexpected as it is strategic. Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape (2012) will be sold in an invite-only live auction on May 20, 2026, at Tiffany & Co.’s Fifth Avenue flagship, with an estimate of $13 million to $18 million. The work, consigned by a private collector, has never been seen in public before.
The painting belongs to Banksy’s “Crude Oils” context, the early-2000s body of work in which the British street artist reimagined familiar landscapes and Old Master references through signs of modern damage. In this case, the image of a balloon-bearing figure is set against a subdued, atmospheric landscape, a composition that folds one of Banksy’s best-known motifs into a more painterly register.
Fair Warning founder Loïc Gouzer, the former Christie’s executive who helped oversee the $450 million sale of Salvator Mundi, has argued that Banksy’s market position is still ascending. He has compared the artist’s trajectory to Jean-Michel Basquiat, calling the work “one of the most important Banksys to come to auction.”
The platform has staged live auctions only twice before. One of those sales featured Andy Warhol’s 1974 portrait of Brigitte Bardot, which brought $16.7 million. Fair Warning also brokered a $10.8 million sale of a 1982 Basquiat painting in 2020, still the most valuable artwork sold on an app.
Banksy’s auction record remains Love Is in the Bin (2018), the self-destructed work that sold for $25.4 million at Sotheby’s London in 2021. Other “Crude Oils” works have also performed strongly: Show Me the Monet (2005) sold for $9.9 million at Sotheby’s London in 2020, and Sunflowers From Petrol Station (2005) brought $14.5 million at Christie’s New York in 2021.
Before the auction, the Banksy will be displayed at Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue store from May 7, alongside works by Damien Hirst, Daniel Arsham, and Anna Weyant. For Fair Warning, the sale is another attempt to turn an auction into an event shaped as much by context as by price.
