Banksy's Mona Lisa On Mesh
Image © MyArtBroker 2025
Banksy
269 works
A Banksy Twist on da Vinci's Masterpiece.
Banksy’s Mona Lisa - the piece is rendered in black-and-white stencil style, with Banksy’s signature visible at bottom right. It features a layered construction: spray-painted elements on mesh mounted over a painted wooden panel, giving the famous face of Mona Lisa a striking, dimensional presence.
Banksy’s Mona Lisa is a bold reimagining of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting, filtered through the subversive lens of the anonymous British street artist. Originally created in 2003, Banksy’s version takes the most recognisable face in Western art and “reclaims this image for a new generation” using the tools of street art. In Banksy’s hands, the Mona Lisa transforms from Renaissance serenity into a contemporary statement – “blasted in monochrome spray paint” and imbued with a provocative twist. Early versions of Banksy’s Mona Lisa were stencilled in black-and-white with drips of spray paint streaming from her eyes – a literal portrayal of art’s veneer melting away. This subversive approach places Banksy’s Mona Lisa firmly in line with the artist’s penchant for satirical riffs on art history, much like his other appropriations of classic images by artists such as Jack Vettriano, Claude Monet, and even Leonardo da Vinci himself.
Image © MyArtBroker 2025Provenance: From Hollywood Secret to Public Showcase
The journey of Banksy’s Mona Lisa is as fascinating as the artwork itself. The piece remained “previously unknown” to the public for nearly two decades. It was originally acquired directly from Banksy in 2003 by a Hollywood A-list actor, who was a personal friend of the artist. (Media reports have since identified the collector as actor Brad Pitt, a noted Banksy aficionado.) For years, the work resided quietly in this private collection, never exhibited. Then in 2022, a remarkable twist occurred: the owner returned the painting to Banksy so that he could develop it further and transform it into a new artwork incorporating the original. Banksy took his 2003 canvas and reworked it, mounting a newly spray-painted mesh layer over the original wooden panel – literally adding another dimension to the piece. The result is a unique, signed work consisting of spray paint and acrylic on wood, overlaid with a spray-painted mesh, authenticated by Banksy’s Pest Control office (the artist’s official verifier).
Image © MyArtBroker 2025After this 2022 reinvention, the Mona Lisa emerged from the shadows. In early 2023 the updated artwork was sold privately to a new collector. That collector agreed to lend the piece for public display, making it one of the star attractions of The Art of Banksy exhibition – a large touring showcase of Banksy works. In September 2023, Banksy’s Mona Lisa was revealed to the public for the first time ever at the London exhibition on Regent Street. “It’s the first time it is on public display and is a very special and striking piece,” noted curator Michel Boersma, who highlighted the work as a personal favourite of the show. The painting’s London debut was followed by a North American appearance in Toronto in May 2024 as part of the same exhibition tour. Notably, Banksy’s own press office has disavowed the unauthorised exhibition, but the piece’s inclusion has nonetheless allowed thousands of viewers to finally see this once-secret work.
Image © MyArtBroker 2025Artistic Significance and Banksy’s Mona Lisa Variations
Banksy’s Mona Lisa on Mesh stands as a fascinating example of the artist’s dialogue with art history and popular culture. By appropriating the Mona Lisa, Banksy joins a lineage of artists like Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, who famously tweaked Leonardo’s masterpiece to challenge viewers’ perceptions. In Banksy’s case, the Mona Lisa has been a recurring muse, reappearing in “a variety of profane guises” throughout his career.
One early incarnation, Mona Lisa with AK-47 (2000), depicts Leonardo’s lady as a modern insurgent, calmly shouldering an assault rifle while a bright red sniper’s laser dot hovers on her forehead. Rendered in stark monochrome stencil with only that red dot in colour, this painting fuses “historical reverence with contemporary dissent”, turning the Mona Lisa into an “embodiment of defiance” that questions the glorification of violence and the sanctity of classical art. Another Banksy twist on Mona Lisa appeared in a 2004 stunt at the Louvre Museum in Paris: Banksy clandestinely hung his own fake Mona Lisa in the gallery, replacing her famous face with a yellow smiley-face symbol.
Image © MyArtBroker 2025The Mona Lisa reinterpreted on mesh in 2022 continues this tradition of satire and subversion. By separating the visage of Mona Lisa onto a sprayed mesh layer, Banksy adds literal depth and metaphorical commentary – as if peeling back or disrupting the image’s aura. Critics have noted that all of Banksy’s Mona Lisa works “carry the weight of history with the immediacy of contemporary concerns”, prompting us to rethink the Mona Lisa not as a untouchable relic, but as a living canvas for modern anxieties and ideas. In Banksy’s hands, art history’s most famous smile becomes a vehicle for questioning authority, power, and the art world itself. This aligns with Banksy’s broader practice in which he often remixes classic art images to “upset the old order” and inject new meaning. For instance, in his “Crude Oils” series of 2005, Banksy painted his own versions of beloved paintings but with dark twists: Claude Monet’s water lilies filled with shopping carts and traffic cones (titled Show Me the Monet), Vincent van Gogh’s sunflowers wilted and dead in their vase, or Jack Vettriano’s elegant dancing couple on a beach now interrupted by an ominous oil spill and hazmat-suited clean-up crew (Crude Oil (Vettriano)). These works “juxtapose romance with reality,” transforming idyllic scenes into stark social or environmental critiques. Banksy’s Mona Lisa is very much part of this continuum – a witty, dark reimagining that bridges high art and street art.
Image © MyArtBroker 2025Market Value and Auction Highlights
Beyond its artistic intrigue, Banksy’s Mona Lisa has proven to be a coveted prize in the art market. When one of Banksy’s original 2003 Mona Lisa stencil paintings (similar to the base of the current piece) first hit public auction in October 2006, it created a sensation. The work — featuring the Mona Lisa with paint dripping from her eyes — sold for £57,600 at Sotheby’s, stunning observers by more than doubling its high estimate and breaking Banksy’s auction record at the time. This sale underscored the surging demand for Banksy originals in the mid-2000s, firmly establishing the once-underground graffiti artist as a serious player in the art world.
Fast-forward to recent years, and the stakes have risen astronomically. In June 2019, another Banksy Mona Lisa painting (from 2000, featuring the armed Mona Lisa scenario) fetched approximately £731,000 (around $915,000 with fees) at a London auction. This hefty price reflected both Banksy’s skyrocketing market and the enduring appeal of his classic-art parodies. By comparison, Banksy’s overall auction record currently stands in the millions – for example, his sensational self-shredding Girl with Balloon (retitled Love is in the Bin) sold for £18.5 million in 2021 – but those works are singular events. What makes the Mona Lisa on mesh especially exciting to collectors is its unique story and rarity. It is a one-of-a-kind piece (Banksy made at most three Mona Lisa stencil paintings in the early 2000s, and this 2022 version incorporates one of them, making something entirely new). Given its backstory involving a Hollywood owner and Banksy’s own hand reworking it, experts consider it “a top work of the artist” and anticipate it could command a record price for a Banksy when it eventually heads to auction.
As of 2025, the piece had remained on public view, only temporarily – on loan to the exhibition – and its next chapter is eagerly watched. The exhibition’s organisers have confirmed that Banksy’s Mona Lisa will go to auction or into private sale in the near future, and speculation is mounting that it could set a new high mark for Banksy’s art. If so, it would cap an extraordinary journey: from a secret purchase in 2003, to a reinvention by the artist in 2022, to possibly becoming one of the most expensive Banksy artworks ever sold. Regardless of price tags, Banksy’s Mona Lisa has already secured its place as a fascinating intersection of art history, celebrity provenance, and the mischievous genius of Banksy’s creativity – a piece that truly offers “something for everyone” in its blend of the classical and the cutting-edge.
Exhibition History: Banksy, Mona Lisa on Mesh
2023 — The Art of Banksy, 84-86 Regent Street, London, UK
- First-ever public display of Mona Lisa on Mesh.
- Featured as one of the headline works in this large-scale, touring Banksy exhibition.
- Curated by Michel Boersma, with the piece described as "a very special and striking work".
- On loan from a private collector.
2024 — The Art of Banksy, Lighthouse ArtSpace, Toronto, Canada
- North American debut of Mona Lisa on Mesh.
- Part of the continued global tour of The Art of Banksy, showcasing over 150 works.
