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A Banksy painting created on a Brooklyn wall is going up for auction.
Battle to Survive a Broken Heart, the piece created by the artist on a six-foot wall in Brooklyn, New York, will be for sale starting May 21 at New York auction house Guernsey’s.
The piece was crafted by the famously secretive British artist in 2013 when he painted a heart-shaped balloon covered with a Band-Aid on the wall of a Brooklyn warehouse.
Only days after its debut, someone spray-painted the words “Omar NYC” in red beside the balloon, to the dismay of onlookers who had quickly begun to flock to the wall.
Then, someone stenciled “is a little girl” in white and pink beside Omar’s tag, followed by a seemingly sarcastic phrase in black: “I remember MY first tag.” Some think it was Banksy himself who secretly returned to the scene to add the rejoinder.
Others also tried to leave their marks. One person was stopped by security guards. Today the phrase “SHAN” is still visible in light purple paint.
Maria Georgiadis, whose family owned the now-demolished warehouse and ultimately removed the section of wall to preserve the artwork, says the graffiti pastiche is quintessentially New York.
“It looks like a war going on,” she said recently. “They’re literally going at it on the wall.”
Georgiadis, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, says the sale is bittersweet. Her father, Vassilios Georgiadis, ran his roofing and asbestos abatement company from the warehouse adorned with the balloon.
He died four years ago at age 67 from a heart attack, which is why some of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to the American Heart Association.
“It’s just very significant to us because he loved it and he was just so full of love,” Maria Georgiadis said on a recent visit to the art warehouse where the piece was stored for more than a decade. “It’s like the bandage heart. We all have love, but we’ve all went through things and we just put a little Band-Aid over and just keep on moving, right? That’s how I take it.”
Maria Georgiadis’ brother, Anastasios, said his father had also hoped to keep the piece in Red Hook after having cut it out of the wall and framed in thick steel for safekeeping.
The elder Georgiadis, he said, envisioned the work as the centerpiece of a retail and housing development on the property, a dream he didn't realize. The property has since been sold off by the family.
It’s difficult to say what the piece might sell for.
In 2018, a canvas that was part of Banksy's “Girl With Balloon” series sold in London for 1.04 million pounds ($1.4 million), only to famously self-destruct in front of a stunned auction crowd.
Maria Georgiadis said she hopes whoever buys the “Broken Heart” finds the same beauty and meaning her father drew from the piece.
When Banksy painted it, the family business had been recovering from destructive floods caused by Hurricane Sandy the prior year. Georgiadis recalls her father had no idea who Banksy was but was moved by the simple image.
“My dad had it in his head that Banksy knew what we went through,” she said. “He goes, ‘Can you believe it Maria? It’s a heart.’”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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