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Banksy's ‘Sunflower from Petrol Station’ to Fetch 13 Million Pound at Auction

A Banksy painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers which is to be auctioned in November 2021. The painting, titled Sunflowers From Petrol Station, is being sold by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith.
A Banksy painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers which is to be auctioned in November 2021. The painting, titled Sunflowers From Petrol Station, is being sold by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith.
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Banksy's ‘Sunflower from Petrol Station’ to Fetch 13 Million Pound at Auction

A Banksy painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers which is to be auctioned in November 2021. The painting, titled Sunflowers From Petrol Station, is being sold by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith.
A Banksy painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers which is to be auctioned in November 2021. The painting, titled Sunflowers From Petrol Station, is being sold by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith.

Banksy's "Sunflowers From Petrol Station" is being sold by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith and it has been valued at between £8.8 million and £13.2 million. The work is inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

According to the daily Mirror, the 2005 artwork will be displayed in Los Angeles and Hong Kong ahead of its sale in New York next month. Sir Paul said: "What initially attracted me to Banksy was his confidence and clarity to communicate something exactly as it is. I was so impressed by his observations of what was happening in the world and that remains true of the work he's doing today."

"His political statements are completely on point, really profound, really brave and consistently delivered in a modern way. I was delighted to have the opportunity to be able to own a piece of his work and the Sunflower itself presents such a brilliantly unique way of thinking about things," he continued.

Commenting on the piece's display for auction, Katharine Arnold, Christie's head of post-war and contemporary art in Europe, said: "Following the record-breaking sale of Game Changer in March, another major oil on canvas by Banksy - we are delighted to offer Sunflowers From Petrol Station this November."

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Venice Is Sinking… But Italian Engineer Suggests Plan to Lift the City

Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)
Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)
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Venice Is Sinking… But Italian Engineer Suggests Plan to Lift the City

Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)
Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)

It’s the “floating city” but also the sinking city. In the past century, Venice has subsided by around 25 centimeters, or nearly 10 inches, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, the average sea level in Venice has risen nearly a foot since 1900.

It’s a tortuous pairing that means one thing: Not just regular flooding, but an inexorable slump of this most beloved of cities into the watery depths of its famous lagoon.

For visitors, its precarious status is part of the attraction of Venice — a need to visit now before it’s too late, a symbol that humanity cannot win against the power of nature.

For Venetians, the city’s island location has for centuries provided safety against invasion, but also challenges.

Tides have got ever higher and more frequent as the climate crisis intensifies. And the city sinks around two millimeters a year due to regular subsidence.

But what if you could just... raise the city? It sounds like science fiction. In fact it’s the idea of a highly respected engineer who thinks it could be the key to saving Venice.

While the Italian government is currently spending millions of euros each year raising flood barriers to block exceptionally high tides from entering the lagoon, Pietro Teatini, associate professor in hydrology and hydraulic engineering at the nearby University of Padua, says that pumping water into the earth deep below the city would raise the seabed on which it sits, pushing Venice skyward.

By raising the level of the city by 30 centimeters (just under 12 inches), Teatini believes that he could gift Venice two or three decades — during which time the city could work out a permanent way to fight the rising tides.

“We can say we have in front of us 50 years [including the lifespan of the MOSE] to develop a new strategy,” he says, according to CNN. “We have to develop a much more drastic project.”