Banksy’s Game Changer will be offered at auction in Christie’s 20th Century Art Evening Sale on 23 March 2021, with a pre-sale estimate of £2,500,000-3,500,000.
The painting was delivered to Southampton general hospital last May, during the first wave of the pandemic, with a note: “Thanks for all you’re doing. I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if its only black and white.”
Now the painting which was gifted to the hospital is coming to an auction, which has been Banksy’s intention all this time. However, a reproduction of the painting will still be hung on the hospital’s wall for future patients, visitors and staff. The original Game Changer will be sold with the proceeds to be benefitting the NHS.
In crisp, linear detail, Game Changer, which is hand-painted, shows a young boy playing with a selection of superhero dolls. In the painting, Batman and Spiderman lie discarded in a bin; instead, the child clutches a new idol. A masked nurse dressed in the international uniform of the Red Cross soars to the rescue, her cape fluttering and arm outstretched towards the sky.
Game Changer will be seen outside the hospital for the first time, hanging in a window at Christie’s headquarters in London from 8-15 March. Its sale is following a pattern with Banksy selling a triptych at Sotheby’s last summer to raise money for a hospital in Bethlehem.
The record for a Banksy painting at auction was set by an enormous work titled Devolved Parliament, showing chimpanzees as MPs in the House of Commons chamber. It sold for £9.9m in 2019. Banksy reacted on Instagram that it was a “shame I didn’t still own it”.