Banksy's
stencil, Reading prison.
Renowned
street artist Banksy has pledged to donate £10 million to help fund a bid to
purchase Reading Gaol, the jail that once held Oscar Wilde, and turn it into an
art centre. The street artist Banksy is selling a stencil he painted on the
side of Reading prison in a bid to save the former jail from being turned into
a block of flats. The work, painted in March, shows a prisoner escaping on a
rope of bedsheets tied to a typewriter. Proceeds from its sale, expected to
fetch more than £10m, will support Reading Borough Council’s bid to buy the
site and turn it into an arts centre.
A
petition organised by the Save the Reading Gaol campaign confirms that “Banksy
has indeed pledged the artwork to the people of Reading on the understanding
that all the proceeds from its sale are used to secure the purchase of the gaol
and convert it into an arts centre.” The stencil is currently on show at
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery in the exhibition Grayson’s Art Club. Banksy’s
authentication body, Pest Control, declined to say if any private offers have
yet been received for the work.
The
historic prison, which Oscar Wilde was once held, has been under threat of
redevelopment after the UK Ministry of Justice put it up for sale in late 2019.
Two bids have since been fallen through and the site was put back on the market
in June. The council submitted a £2.6m bid early 2020, which was rejected; the
Ministry of Justice says it is currently considering new bids.
Banksy
told the Sunday Times: “I promised myself I’d paint the wall even before I knew
what it was. I’m passionate about it now, though. Oscar Wilde is the patron
saint of smashing two contrasting ideas together to create magic. Converting
the place that destroyed him into a refuge for art feels so perfect, we have to
do it.” Matt Rodda, the Labour MP for Reading East, tweeted that “it’s the best
Christmas present Reading could wish for”.
The
now-defunct jail, which was permanently closed in 2013, is a Grade II-listed
building and has art historical significance as the place that the playwright
Oscar Wilde was detained for gross indecency between 1895 and 1897.
Wilde's
association with the building has led it to be described by Reading council as
a "LGBT heritage site". In 2016, the public art organisation Artangel
organised Inside: Artists and Writers in Reading Prison, an exhibition
featuring work by artists including Ai Weiwei, Marlene Dumas and Wolfgang
Tillmans. Musician Patti Smith and the actor Ben Whishaw paid homage to Wilde
by reading De Profundis, a harrowing letter written to his lover Lord Alfred
Douglas, in the prison chapel.
Banksy’s
work Love is in the Bin set a new auction world record for the artist in
October when it sold for £18.6m (with fees) at Sotheby’s London to a private
Asian client.
