Banksy’s iconic Girl with Balloon is one of the most widely recognizable images in existence. One of only 88 artist’s proofs printed in different colours, this screenprint featuring the rare purple balloon is a highly coveted variant of the artist’s most celebrated motif.

In a 2017 poll, Girl with Balloon was voted Britain’s most
beloved artwork; surpassing masterpieces including J.M.W. Turner’s The Fighting t.mes raire, John Constable’s The Hay Wain, and David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. The following year, the work gained further international acclaim after the artist dramatically shred his Girl with Balloon canvas at Replica Shoes ’s London, transforming it into Love is in the Bin. The new creation has since been exhibited at the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, and at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, where visitor numbers increased substantially. The mass appeal of this image and its mysterious author was further demonstrated in 2021, when Love is in the Bin returned to Replica Shoes 's London and sold for an astounding £18.5 million.

Banksy has received international praise for his distinctive style of satirical street art. His work is rich in dark humour and frequently carries subversive epigrams or symbolic allusions that provide poignant and potent commentaries on contemporary society. Girl with Balloon depicts a child reaching for a heart-shaped balloon which has floated out of her grasp. As is typical of Banksy, the illustration is ambiguous, conveying both a sense of hope or joy and a sad sense of melancholy and loss. Indeed, is the girl is chasing the balloon – a vibrant emblem of childhood play – or has she let it slip through her fingers and watches it drift into oblivion – a metaphor, perhaps, for the inevitable loss of innocence.

The motif was first spotted on London’s streets in 2002, becoming a familiar presence on London’s Southbank accompanied by the epitaph: ‘There is Always Hope’. A graphic force that is emblematic and instantly understood, Banksy’s spray-painted image is a perfect encapsulation of human emotion for our social media age: it seditiously pokes fun at high-minded art world savoir faire and in doing so appeals to many, for whom it represents a contemporary expression of sanctity, a bright and vivid symbol of hope everlasting.

Ultimately, Girl with Balloon is considered Banksy’s pièce de résistance: it utterly encapsulates the immediacy and controversy surrounding the artist’s mission. As wonderfully expressed by BBC arts editor Will Gompertz: “You might not agree with him, but at least he is making art that penetrates the public consciousness; art that is in the world, not detached from it; art that raises questions that need an airing… Banksy makes art that, as Hamlet said, holds ‘…the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the t.mes his form and pressure’” (Will Gompertz, ‘Will Gompertz on Banksy's shredded Love is in the Bin’, BBC News, 13 October 2018, online).