In 2002, a stencilled image appeared on a wall on Waterloo Bridge in South Bank, London. A young girl, hair and dress caught in the wind, reaches toward a red heart-shaped balloon as it drifts out of reach. Beside it, three words: There is always hope.
Twenty-four years later, Girl with Balloon is arguably the single most recognisable piece of British art produced this century — voted the UK's favourite artwork in a 2017 Samsung poll, ahead of works by David Hockney and Bridget Riley. It has been projected onto the Eiffel Tower, tattooed onto a global pop star, reworked to support refugees, partially shredded live at a £1 million Sotheby's auction, and resold for £18.5 million in its destroyed state. No other contemporary artwork has travelled quite this distance — from an illegal stencil on a London wall to one of the most consequential objects in the history of the art market.
How a Street Stencil Became a Cultural Icon
Banksy was, in 2002, still a niche figure — well known within Bristol's underground graffiti scene, increasingly notorious in London, but a long way from global recognition. Girl with Balloon appeared first in Shoreditch and then at Waterloo Bridge, sites chosen with the same logic that defined his early career: place the work where ordinary people, not gallery visitors, would be the first audience. No admission ticket, no wall text, no prior knowledge required.
Neither original stencil survives. Both were eventually painted over or lost, as was the common fate of street art at the time. But rather than diminishing the work, the disappearance of the physical murals seems to have done the opposite — the image escaped the wall entirely and entered something closer to collective memory.
The Edition That Changed Everything
In 2004, working with photographer and curator Steve Lazarides, Banksy produced the first screenprint editions: 600 unsigned and unnumbered prints, 150 signed and numbered, and a small run of coloured artist's proofs. Signed editions originally sold for around £150.
The market did not respond immediately. It took until roughly 2007 — when demand for Banksy's prints had grown enough that Banksy established Pest Control, his own authentication body, specifically to manage the volume of forgeries and disputed attributions beginning to circulate. From that point, the trajectory changed completely. A canvas version sold for $158,500 at Phillips in 2008. By 2012, a miniature version on the cardboard backing of an Ikea frame realised £73,250 at Bonhams.
The records kept falling. In September 2020, Girl With Balloon (Colour AP, Purple) sold for £791,250 at Christie's — the highest price ever paid for a Banksy print at the time. Six months later, in March 2021, Girl With Balloon (Gold) shattered that record entirely, selling for £1,104,000 at Sotheby's.
"We've watched interest in Girl with Balloon grow steadily for over two decades. It's rare for a single image to mean something different to almost everyone who sees it — that's what makes it the artwork people keep coming back to."
Helena | Art Advisor & Client Liaison
Reinvented for the Moment
What separates Girl with Balloon from most iconic images is that Banksy has never treated it as finished. In August 2005, he reworked it for a series of murals on the Israeli West Bank barrier — a variant called Balloon Debate, showing the girl floating above the wall clutching a bunch of balloons instead of one. Banksy's own description of the barrier was unambiguous: it turns Palestine into "the world's largest open prison."
In March 2014, on the third anniversary of the Syrian civil war, the girl became a Syrian refugee, released online under the hashtag #WithSyria and projected onto the Eiffel Tower and Nelson's Column. An animated film followed, narrated by Idris Elba with music by Elbow. Justin Bieber got a tattoo of the original design and posted it to Instagram before deleting it — Banksy reposted the photo with a single word: "Controversial."
In 2017, ahead of the UK general election, the balloon became a Union Jack, and Banksy briefly offered free prints to voters in marginal constituencies who could prove they had voted against the Conservative government — an offer withdrawn within days after the Electoral Commission warned it might constitute bribery under election law.
The Night It Shredded Itself
On 5 October 2018, a framed 2006 canvas of Girl with Balloon went to auction at Sotheby's London. The hammer came down at £1,042,000 — a new record for the artist at the time. Moments later, a mechanical shredder concealed inside the frame activated, and the lower half of the canvas began sliding through the bottom of its own frame in front of a stunned auction room.
Sotheby's released a statement admitting they had "not experienced this situation in the past where a painting spontaneously shredded." Banksy posted a photo of the partially destroyed work on Instagram with the caption "Going, going, gone…" and gave it a new title: Love Is in the Bin. The buyer chose to proceed with the purchase. Sotheby's later called it the first artwork in history created live during an auction.
The destroyed work did not lose value. It gained it, dramatically. In October 2021, Love Is in the Bin returned to Sotheby's and sold for £18.5 million — roughly eighteen times the price of the intact original three years earlier.
Why It Still Matters, 24 Years On
Banksy left the image's meaning deliberately open. The only clue accompanying the original stencil was the phrase There is always hope — and even that resolves nothing. Is the girl losing the balloon, or letting it go? Is this a picture about heartbreak, or about release? Banksy has never said, and the refusal to resolve that question is precisely what has allowed the image to be claimed by so many different causes, contexts, and audiences over more than two decades.
Few works of art produced in this century have managed to be, simultaneously, a piece of protest art, a children's book illustration, a record-breaking auction lot, a tattoo, and a genuine piece of British cultural identity. Girl with Balloon has been all of these things, and the fact that it can hold all of them at once — without losing its essential simplicity — is the clearest evidence of why it endures.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Banksy's Girl with Balloon mean? Banksy has never explained it. The only clue is the phrase that accompanied the original stencil, "There is always hope," and even that resolves nothing. Some read the girl as losing the balloon — a symbol of lost innocence. Others read her as releasing it deliberately — an emblem of hope and freedom. Banksy has left the interpretation open by design.
How much is a Girl with Balloon print worth? It depends entirely on the edition and colourway. Unsigned prints from the original 2004 run have traded in the low thousands. Signed editions and artist's proofs in rarer colourways have sold for considerably more — Girl With Balloon (Colour AP, Purple) reached £791,250 at Christie's in September 2020, and Girl With Balloon (Gold) set a new record at £1,104,000 at Sotheby's in March 2021.
Why did Banksy shred Girl with Balloon? In October 2018, moments after a framed canvas sold for £1,042,000 at Sotheby's London, a mechanical shredder hidden inside the frame activated and destroyed the lower half of the work. Banksy had built the device into the frame years earlier in case the painting was ever sold at auction. He retitled the partially destroyed piece Love Is in the Bin — widely read as a comment on the art market's obsession with value and spectacle.
Is Love Is in the Bin worth more than the original Girl with Balloon? Considerably more. The shredded work returned to Sotheby's in October 2021 and sold for £18.5 million — around eighteen times the £1.04 million paid for the intact canvas three years earlier.
Where can I see the original Girl with Balloon mural? Neither original stencil survives. The Waterloo Bridge and Shoreditch murals were both painted over or lost over time, which is the common fate of unprotected street art. The image now exists only through Banksy's screenprint editions, painted canvases, and its various public reworkings.
Creed Gallery, Ascot, holds an active stock of Banksy editions, including signed prints, original works on paper, and the Mr. Brainwash | Banksy Flower Thrower — a direct reinterpretation of one of Banksy's other most recognisable images. Browse our current Banksy collection →
Read more: Banksy Prints Investment Guide 2026
Or wait for tomorrow's announcement — a new Mr. Brainwash release, landing at Creed Gallery this week.
