Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus has sold an original artwork by world-famous artist Banksy at auction for £4.3million.
Hoppus acquired ‘Crude Oil (Vettriano)’, the British artist's subversive take on recently-deceased Scottish painter Jack Vettriano's unfathomably popular work The Singing Butler, in 2011.
In addition to donating a portion of the proceeds to the LA Fire Foundation and two medical charities - Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for their Child Life Program, and Cedars Sinai Haematology Oncology Research - Blink-182's vocalist/bassist has said that he wants to use money from the March 4 sale of the painting at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction to purchase work from young, up-and-coming artists.
The piece, sold to a private collector, had been projected to sell for three to five million pounds. Sotheby's said the painting is "a quintessential Banksy challenge to power, taste, and authority."
"We loved this painting the moment we saw it,' said Hoppus. "Unmistakably Banksy, but different."
