Three years after Port Talbot became the home of a Banksy mural, locals bid farewell to the piece as it is permanently moved to England.
The Welsh town was visited by the world-famous graffiti artist just before Christmas in 2018, where he made his mark on a local steelworker’s garage wall with the painting officially known as “Season’s Greetings”.
It shows a child dressed for snow playing in the falling ash and smoke from a skip fire, spanning over two walls of the garage.
Overnight, Port Talbot became a tourist hotspot as crowds flocked to see the mural, prompting Neath Port Talbot Council to arrange round-the-clock security to protect the artwork.
An Essex-based art dealer, John Brandler, bought the piece from the garage owner in May 2019 for an undisclosed six-figure sum despite never having seen the painting in real life.
The artwork — and the wall it is on — were moved to an empty building in the town but the owner of the site wanted the space back and the council was not prepared to meet the cost of another venue.
It has now been transported to a temporary storage facility before it is permanently moved to a new home at the University of Suffolk in Ipswich.
Mr Brandler told WalesOnline: “Since Season’s Greetings appeared three years ago, fanatics have tried to destroy this amazing piece of art. We’re moving it to preserve it for future generations, where it can be seen and enjoyed, but not vandalised.”
Neath Port Talbot Council said keeping the artwork in the town would have cost £100,000 a year which the authority could not afford.
In November, council leader Ted Latham said: “I am sad it’s finally come to this. It should have been a centre piece for a street art museum that would have brought 150,000 people into the town.”
Many have called it a “missed opportunity” to revitalise the town, including actor Michael Sheen who grew up in Port Talbot.
“Everyone was incredibly excited about the fact that Banksy had chosen to do a piece in the town. It’s been a catalyst for creativity from people within the town as well. You know, there’s been poetry and songs and other artworks being done. And that’s been fantastic,” he told BBC Wales Live.
He added: “I suppose in some ways it’s followed a pattern where there’s something of great potential in the town, a lot of great ideas, but the the ambition and the vision doesn’t really materialise and the thing of real value tends to get extracted from the country and goes off into England. It’s an old story isn’t it.”
The Banksy Preservation Society aims to raise money to fund the preservation of Season’s Greetings and to ensure it will be on display to the public in the future.
