London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Banksy artwork raises more than €19 million for UK health service

Banksy artwork raises more than €19 million for UK health service

A painting by UK street artist Banksy raised over £16.7 million (around €19.4 million) for Britain's National Health Service (NHS) at an auction on Tuesday.

The artwork, titled "Game Changer", fetched more than four times the estimated price Christie's auction house had set.

The black and white painting first appeared at Southampton General Hospital on the south coast of England during the first wave of the pandemic in May 2020.

It depicts a child playing with a doll that resembles a nurse, dressed in a cape and striking a pose like superman, while other superheroes lie in a basket next to him.

The one square metre piece was hung in collaboration with the hospital's management near the emergency department.

Hospital chief executive Paula Head tweeted at the time: "So proud to reveal this amazing piece of art ‘Painting for Saints’, created by #Banksy as a thank you to all those who work with and for the NHS and our hospital."

“An inspirational backdrop to pause and reflect in these unprecedented times,” she added on Twitter.

The anonymous artist left a note with the piece saying: "Thanks for all you're doing. I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if it's only in black and white."

The artwork's auction price far surpassed Banksy's previous record for the oil-on-canvas painting "Devolved Parliament", which sold for £9.9 million (€11.5 million at the current rate) in 2009.

The auction took place one year after England was put under a nationwide lockdown in a bid to fight COVID-19.

The Twitter account NHS Million, a campaign run by the health service's staff that aims to find a million people who are grateful for it, thanked Banksy in a post.


This is not the first coronavirus-related work created by the Bristol-based artist since the outbreak of COVID-19.

In April 2020, he posted snaps of rats he had drawn causing havoc in his bathroom. The caption read: "My wife hates it when I work from home."

And in July, he used the London Tube as his canvas, this time sharing a video on his Instagram account featuring an individual, assumed to be him, dressed in the same uniform as the cleaners who have been drafted in to disinfect the underground during the COVID-19 crisis.

The individual ushers away passengers as he spray-paints rats in various guises relating to the pandemic on the walls of the carriages using a stencil.

Banksy rose to prominence in the 1990s and his work usually has political connotations, decrying hunger, poverty, racism or the plight of migrants and refugees.

Some of his latest works have focused on the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2018, he famously destroyed one of his own artwork right after it had sold in an auction for $1.4 million (€1.3 million).

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×