Banksy Mural Caught Up in Legal Battle Between Working Man’s Club and One of Its Ex-Employees

A mural by Banksy is caught up in a legal battle after the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club in east London, upon which it was painted, claimed the work had been illegally removed and put up for sale in the US.  

The mural, titled Yellow Lines Flower Painter (2007), portrays a workman in dungarees holding a paint roller and sitting on a paint tin. Next to him is a giant flower that has emerged out of the street’s double-yellow lines. The painting is currently in Colorado.

Trustees from the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club have filed a lawsuit against one of its own employees, Warren Dent, and other defendants, reports the Financial Times.

According to the club’s former accountant, who works for the firm Capital & Co, club secretary Stephen Smorthit agreed to sell Dent Yellow Lines Flower Painter for £20,000 ($27,000) in 2019. Art restorer Chris Bull, who owns the Fine Art Restoration company (also a defendant in the case), was then commissioned by Dent to remove the mural. Bull was also asked to restore the work after it had been vandalized with graffiti.

The FT reports that after Bull successfully removed the work, he loaned it to his father’s gallery in Aspen, Colorado, for a show in March last year. Bull says Dent and three club members agreed to the loan. Before it was shipped to the US, Yellow Lines Flower Painter was insured for around $750,000.

However, a lawsuit filed last month by three trustees from the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club – Paul Le Masurier, Alan Milliner, and Kerry Smorthit – argues that they did not give Dent permission to buy the work. (Kerry is the daughter of club secretary, Stephen.) It also claims the painting was unlawfully put up for sale in the US. The trio of trustees are suing for the return of the work, and they say that Dent has no right to sell it because he does not own it.

Bull and Fine Art Restoration said they will contest the claim: “We’re only named because we’re in possession of the work and we’re up for giving it up if we’re asked to,” he told the FT.  Banksy’s office, Pest Control, the three trustees, Dent, and Capital & Co all declined to comment.

Banksy’s auction record is £18.6 million ($25.5 million) for Love is in the Bin (originally titled Girl with Balloon), which notoriously self-shredded at Sotheby’s in 2018. However, the British artist’s wall works have proven harder to value, especially because he does not issue certificates of authenticity for them.

Last year, Banksy’s Happy Choppers (2002), showing a fleet of helicopters, some adorned with giant pink bows, failed to find a buyer at an auction house in Newcastle. Estimated at £500,000 ($680,000) but no certificate of authenticity, it had been removed from the wall of an office building in Shoreditch, east London.