Love Is In The Air (unsigned)

The auction history of Love Is In The Air (unsigned) offers one of the most revealing views of the Banksy print market over the past several years. Unlike many secondary images, Love Is In The Air is one of the artist’s definitive compositions: politically charged, visually elegant, and immediately recognizable. The protester throwing a bouquet instead of a Molotov cocktail condenses Banksy’s entire language into a single image: resistance, poetry, irony, and the absurd optimism of dissent.

Before the pandemic-era expansion, the unsigned edition traded within a relatively contained range. Between 2018 and 2019, the work generally sold between approximately $16,000 and $27,000. At that stage, it was already an important Banksy print, but still positioned as a comparatively accessible entry point into one of the artist’s most iconic images.

The market changed dramatically in 2020. The September 2020 Sotheby’s online result at approximately $282,745 marked an extraordinary acceleration and effectively announced the speculative phase of the Banksy print market. By 2021, the work entered full market euphoria. The year produced an exceptional number of sales, with results frequently above $120,000 and several exceeding $200,000. The March 2021 Sotheby’s online result at approximately $297,740 remains the highest result in the dataset and should be understood as a peak-cycle benchmark rather than a sustainable valuation level.

The 2021 median price reached approximately $163,800, confirming that the expansion was not limited to one isolated outlier. This was a broad repricing of the image during a period when Banksy’s market benefited from abundant liquidity, intense online bidding, and the perception that his most iconic prints had become quasi-blue-chip assets. The correction began in 2022 but remained uneven. Early 2022 still produced strong results above $130,000, while later sales began to soften. By 2023, the market had clearly normalized into a lower but still meaningful range, generally between $40,000 and $75,000. The absence of recorded 2024 sales in this dataset makes the trajectory less continuous, but the 2025 results provide a clear picture of current market conditions.

In 2025, prices compressed further, mostly between approximately $25,000 and $55,000, with a median around $31,237. This represents a major decline from the speculative peak, but not a return to the pre-2020 market. The current level remains structurally above the 2018–2019 range, suggesting that the collector base has expanded even after the speculative excess disappeared.

This is the key conclusion: Love Is In The Air (unsigned) corrected sharply, but it did not collapse. The image remains one of Banksy’s most important prints and still commands a premium over many other unsigned editions. Its liquidity is also significant, with repeated appearances across Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips, Bonhams, Forum Auctions, Tate Ward, Heritage, and international regional houses.

Key Takeaways

1. Love Is In The Air (unsigned) experienced one of the most spectacular pandemic-era expansions in the Banksy print market.
2. The 2020–2021 results above $200,000 now appear historically exceptional and speculative.
3. The market has normalized substantially since 2022, with 2025 results indicating a more rational collector-driven price range.
4. Despite the correction, current values remain above pre-pandemic levels.
5. The work remains a cornerstone Banksy print because the image is culturally iconic, politically legible, and visually memorable.
6. The unsigned edition now appears to trade as a serious but no longer overheated blue-chip Banksy print.

Love Is In The Air (signed)

The auction history of Love Is In The Air (signed) demonstrates why this work occupies the highest tier of the Banksy print market. While many of the artist’s editions benefited from the extraordinary expansion of the contemporary print market during the pandemic years, few experienced the level of appreciation achieved by this image. The Flower Thrower is not simply one of Banksy’s most recognizable works; it has become one of the defining political images of the twenty-first century.

Love Is In The Air (unsigned) (149/500), 2003
Sotheby’s London: 26 September 2024
Estimated: GBP 25,000 – 35,000
PASSED

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Love Is In The Air (unsigned) (XXX/500), 2003
Forum Auctions: 22 February 2023
Estimated: GBP 45,000 – 60,000
PASSED