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'I haven't got my Banksys back': art dealer's dispute over loaned graffiti works
The Guardian
|September 22, 2025
A bitter row has broken out between a British art dealer and an Italian exhibitions company over three enormous Banksy murals that were loaned three years ago and which the dealer insured for £15m.
John Brandler, an Essex-based specialist in work by the graffiti artist, is pursuing legal action after losing patience with Metamorfosi in Rome, which stages temporary touring exhibitions.
The three works are on the original walls on which they were stencilled. They include Season's Greetings, in which a little boy plays while breathing polluted smoke. It had appeared on the side of a garage near the Port Talbot steelworks in 2018. Brandler purchased it from the garage owner. Weighing 5.5 tonnes, it is 2.2 metres high and 2.5 metres wide.
The other murals are Heart Boy, in which a little boy paints a large pink heart, and Computer Robot, which depicts a child with a robot.
Brandler understands that they were displayed in an exhibition seen in Italy and Switzerland and he has been seeking the final loan payment as well as the murals' return.
This story is from the September 22, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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