Banksy off the wall

When I was asked to write a book about Banksy there were two things that worried me. The first was that I had no idea who Banksy was, but I consoled myself with the fact that neither did anyone else. The second problem was that I needed to view some of his work. This is a harder task than you might imagine, since Banksys are not exactly hanging in art galleries across the country and the graffiti he puts up on walls is often obliterated. In the past this was done by the forces of law and order, but nowadays local councils are rushing to preserve his work rather than paint over it, and the destruction is more likely to be done by rival graffiti artists.

The only piece I had already seen was on the side of a chemist's shop in Essex Road, Islington, north London: children pledging their allegiance to a Tesco flag that had been run up on an electricity cable cleverly transformed by Banksy into a flagpole. I had been stopped dead by this piece and stood in admiration on this scruffy street as though I were in the National Gallery. Finally the spell was broken by a passer-by who announced, 'a load of overrated rubbish,' and kept walking as though he had never said a word. Not only did I disagree with him but the art market did too, for the canvas version of this graffiti was called Very Little Helps and in 2010 was sold at Sotheby's by the former supermodel Jerry Hall for £82,850.         More Read