Wise Buddha

A picture by graffiti artist Banksy of seniors bowling with bombs entitled ‘Bombing Middle England’ has sold in London for £102,000 / C$210,000 breaking a record for his work. The picture which is made from acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, reached double its highest estimated price of £50,000 at Sotheby’s.

This beats the previous highest price paid for one of the artist’s distinctive spray paintings of £62,400 in October 2006, when the image of a couple embracing clad in deep sea diving gear (which was used for the cover of Blur’s Think Tank album) went for 10 times its estimated value at Bonhams.

Banksy’s true identity has never officially been revealed since he became famous for creating politicised graffiti on the walls of public buildings. His high-profile work has included a painting of a ladder on the partition wall in Israel’s West Bank. Last year, he doctored copies of Paris Hilton’s album to show the singer topless with a dog’s head, and placed a life-sized replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee inside the Disneyland theme park in California.