Banksy appears to end animal-themed series as artist uploads artwork to website
By Hannah Roberts, PA Entertainment Reporter
Banksy’s animal-themed series appears to have come to an end with the street artist uploading photos of the artwork to his website.
From Monday, August 5th, the artist, whose identity is unknown but widely speculated on, began to upload photos of artwork depicting different types of animals to his Instagram.
The first was of a goat with rocks falling down below it and a CCTV camera pointed at it which was situated on a building near Kew Bridge in southwest London.
This was followed by two elephant silhouettes with their trunks stretched out towards each other located on a property near Chelsea.
The next day he continued with three monkeys that looked as though they were swinging on a bridge in east London.
On Thursday, August 8th, Banksy’s fourth piece in the collection, a howling wolf on a satellite dish situated on a roof in Peckham, was taken down less than an hour after the street artist unveiled it online.
A witness to its removal told the PA news agency that it was taken by three men and said it was a “great shame”.
After this Banksy unveiled an artwork of pelicans pinching fish from the sign on Bonners Fish Bar in Walthamstow which was praised by local Labour MP Stella Creasy.
The collection continued on August 10th with a silhouette of a stretching cat on an empty, distressed advertising hoarding.
The piece was later dismantled by three men who said they were “hired” from a “contracting company” to take down the billboard for safety reasons.
A black board was first used to cover the majority of the cat on the billboard at the request of the police, who wanted to stop people walking in the road in front of traffic.
An officer at the scene told PA that the owner of the billboard has told police he will donate it to an art gallery.
The day afterwards Banksy confirmed an artwork of a school of fish swimming on a City of London police sentry box was his.
The governing body of the City of London said it was working on options to “preserve” the new artwork.
It is now being kept temporarily by the City of London Corporation’s offices.
On Monday, August 12th, a work of a rhino seemingly mounting a silver Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its bonnet was unveiled.
The artwork was later defaced and a video obtained by BBC News shows a man walking up to the artwork and spray painting it, leaving a white tag on it.
Banksy’s most recent artwork, revealed on Tuesday, is located on a shutter at London Zoo’s entrance and shows a gorilla appearing to lift it up allowing a number of birds to escape, while the eyes of other animals can be seen lurking in the darkness.