Hidden Banksy Art to Be Displayed by London Developer
It’s a moral obligation, isn’t it?”
He said he also doesn’t think that anyone today would choose to paint over the stencil: “If you look at Banksy’s work, as an artist of our era
and generation, you wouldn’t paint over a Monet, would you?”
Jo Brooks, a spokeswoman for Banksy, confirmed that there had been a piece of Banksy art in
that location, and said there had been no dealings with the developer.
Five years ago, Jonathan Ellis, a property developer, heard rumors
that a lost work by the mysterious graffiti artist known as Banksy was hidden under a layer of paint on a brick wall in a weed-choked plot.
“We haven’t even tried to get it authenticated by Pest Control because, from what we were advised, they don’t authenticate street
art,” Mr. Ellis said, “because what they don’t want us to do is get an authentication and sell it to the highest bidder.”
But Mr. Ellis said that was not his intention.
“We were building there, so we had to explain to the builders — without telling them what was underneath it —
that they had to protect this bit of wall,” Mr. Ellis explained.
