In the twenty years since Crude Oil (Vettriano) was first exhibited in Banksy’s landmark 2005 exhibition Crude Oils: A Gallery of Re-mixed Masterpieces, Vandalism and Vermin, Banksy has surpassed his standing as the most famous graffiti artist of his generation to become one of the most popular artists in the world.
The painting is Banksy’s re-imagining of Jack Vettriano’s career-defining The Singing Butler from 1992, which had not only become an iconic image in the western art canon, but also one of the most celebrated pictures in Britain – having sold at Sotheby’s in 2004 for £744,800 – establishing the highest price for any Scottish painting sold at auction at the time and catapulting Vettriano into the financial stratosphere of living contemporary artists.
The image of a couple dancing on a windswept beach with an attendant butler serenading them had become Britain’s most popular art poster, outselling Monet and Van Gogh. Despite the artist’s enthusiastic reception by “ordinary” people, Vettriano was shunned by the art world elite, a disconnect that struck a nerve with Banksy, who had also long been criticised by the art establishment.
Subverting the original work’s romantic narrative, Banksy used his trademark humour and irony to produce an image that tackles pressing issues of the 21st century – such as the environment, pollution and the capitalist landscape – inserting a sinking oil liner and two men in hazmat suits wheeling a barrel of toxic waste. In fact, the painting feels more relevant today than ever before given the increasing frequency of natural disasters, most recently, the devastating wildfires which ravaged Los Angeles.
For his first conventional gallery exhibition in 2005 – now regarded as a milestone in the artist’s career – Banksy took canonical works of art as the inspiration for a series of fully painted ‘remixes’.CrudeOil(Vettriano)washung in a disused shop on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill where it was on prominent view to passers-by in the street. Its prime position set the tone for the exhibition, which included three other paintings: a wilted, bloomless version of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers; a take on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks in which a topless Union Jack boxer-wearing yob has smashed the late-night bar’s glass window; and Show Me the Monet, a satirical riff on Claude Monet’s view of the Japanese footbridge in his water garden at Giverny.** In all of these hijacked traditional oil paintings, Banksy powerfully tackles relevant issues and formulates sharp social commentaries through one recognisable image – but with a twist. By also featuring Vettriano alongside Van Gogh and Monet in his debut exhibition, staged in a more traditional setting, when cultural institutions would not remotely entertain the thought of hanging the Scottish artist’s canvases on their walls, Banksy questions the rigidity of the art world and its taste makers.
In his glowing review of the Crude Oils show, the Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak described Banksy as “an old-fashioned moralist, moaning about the ruination of Britain’s ancient textures”, whose “borrowings from other artists give them instant familiarity”.
Banksy himself explained: “The vandalised paintings reflect life as it is now. We don’t live in a world like Constable’s Haywain anymore and, if you do, there is probably a travellers’ camp on the other side of the hill. The real damage done to our environment is not done by graffiti writers and drunken teenagers, but by big business… exactly the people who put gold-framed pictures of landscapes on their walls and try to tell the rest of us how to behave.”
Sotheby’s holds seven out of the top 10 auction results for Banksy, including the record price achieved by Girl Without Balloon which sold for £18.6m ($25.4m) in October 2021 – three years after the painting, then titled Girl with Balloon, famously shredded in Sotheby’s London saleroom seconds after the hammer fell to become the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction.
Main Image: Banksy, Crude Oil (Vettriano), 2005. Estimate £3-5 million
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