One of Banksy’s most iconic and immediately recognizable images, Keep it Real encapsulates the artist’s biting sense of humor and cutting social satire. Rendered in Banksy’s signature graphic monochromatic visual language, the figure of the monkey appears apathetic, his lumbering shoulders slouched, his arms slack by his side and his heavy brow furrowed.




Keeping It Real
Keep It Real offers a contemporary take on singerie, the pictorial genre in which stylish monkeys engage in human activities. Scenes of monkeys cast within the human realm began to appear in the sixteenth century, and were later explored by a variety of artists including Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jan Brueghel the Elder and the Younger, and Jean-Antoine Watteau. These painters employed monkeys to critique society and its trimmings, a mantle that Banksy has taken up with zeal. ‘I use monkeys in my pictures for a lot of reasons,’ he has explained, ‘guerrilla tactics, cheeky monkeys, the fact that we share 98.5 per cent of our DNA with them. If I want to say something about people, I use a monkey’ (Banksy quoted in F. McClymont, ‘Cheeky Monkey’, The Independent, 27 May 2000). As with so many of his motifs and characters, Banksy has reincarnated the primate in various guises, famously replacing British parliamentarians with chimpanzees in his 2009 painting Devolved Parliament, which lambasted England’s political class.
While Banksy’s initial graffiti work was mostly done freehand, by the time he created Keep It Real, he had begun to use stencils as his primary medium, blasting his chimpanzees onto the side of Tube trains and other locations across London. His epiphany had occurred some years earlier in Bristol when, evading the police, he hid underneath a lorry and took notice of the lettering on its side. ‘As I lay there listening to the cops on the tracks,’ he recalled, ‘I realised I had to cut my painting time in half or give it up altogether’ (Banksy, Wall and Piece, London 2005, p. 13). Pre-cutting his stencils allowed Banksy to work rapidly and without detection while simultaneously lending his images a wry, at times caustic edge. The present work shares the raw immediacy of his urban graffiti, its spray-painted surface simmering with this same urgency.
Since achieving widespread recognition, the world’s most notorious provocateur has expanded his global footprint. His works address burning issues facing humanity, from climate change and immigration to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Like William Hogarth’s engravings, the Dadaists’ response to the horrors of war, and Andy Warhol’s cutting eye, Banksy’s art, too, is rooted in the public consciousness; it is in and of the world, attending to the questions that need uncovering, the zeitgeist and its debris. Unlike so many of his predecessors, however, Banky’s works are conceived not as commentary but actions meant to disrupt the status quo and effect change. By using comprehensible motifs paired with pithy messages, Banksy ensures that his biting critiques are legible to all. His belief that art should be for everyone is underscored by a no-compromise, anarchic ethos—a Banksy may appear at any moment, in any locale—but the medium is the message, too. In Keep It Real, the artist sets the stage for a practice that would speak truth to power, give voice to the powerless, and, ultimately, spread joy.
Auction Results
Keep It Real, 2002
Christie’s London: 9 March 2024
Estimated: GBP 150,000 – 200,000
GBP 277,200 / USD 351,490
REPEAT SALE
Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 1 April 2019
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
HKD 3,250,000 / USD 414,025
BANKSY
Keep It Real, 2002
Spray paint and emulsion on canvas
25.5 x 20 cm (10×8 inches)
Tagged ‘BANKSY’ (on the turnover edge)
Executed in 2002, this work is from a series
Sotheby’s S 2 Gallery, London.
Private Collection.
Anon. sale, Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 1 April 2019, lot 509.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Keep it Real, 2000
International Art Center: 30 March 2021
Estimated: NZD 600,000 – 1,000,000
NZD 1,455,000 / USD 1,016,771
Auction « Tue, 30 Mar, 2021 « Work 27 « International Art Centre
BANKSY
Keep it Real, 2000
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
30×30 cm
Signed on side of canvas
Framed by Leonard Villa, London with framers label affixed verso
Gifted to original owner by the artist, 2003
Subsequently sold to private collector, 2014
Keep It Real, 2002
Estimated: HKD 300,000 – 600,000

Keep It Real, 2002
From a series
Private Collection, Japan (acquired from the artist in 2002)
Keep It Real, 2002
Estimated: GBP 100,000 – 150,000
GBP 337,500 / USD 416,130
BANKSY
Keep It Real, 2002
Acrylic and spray paint stencil on canvas
35.5 x 28 cm (14×11 inches)
From a series
Stenciled with the artist’s name on the overturn edge
Further signed, dated 2002, and dedicated on the stretcher
Private Collection, United States (a gift from the artist)
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
Santa’s Ghetto, Dragon Bar, London, December 2002
Keep It Real, 2002
GBP 418,000 / USD 548,405

Keep It Real, 2002
Acrylic and stencil spray paint on canvas
From a series
Provenance
Dragon Bar, London
Private Collection, Europe (acquired from the above in 2002)
Sotheby’s, London, 30 June 2011, Lot 316
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Santa’s Ghetto, Dragon Bar, London, December 2002
Keep It Real (with Japanese slogan), 2002
Sotheby’s London: 21 November 2017
Estimated: GBP 30,000 – 40,000
GBP 156,250 / USD 206,890

BANKSY
Keep It Real (with Japanese slogan), 2002
Spray-paint and emulsion on cardboard
135×90 cm (53 1/8 x 35 3/8 inches)
From a series, unique in this format
Private Collection, Japan (acquired from the artist in 2002)
Keep It Real, 2002
Bonhams London: 29 June 2017
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 100,000 / USD 129,705
Bonhams : Banksy (British, born 1975) Keep It Real 2002
Acrylic and stencil spray paint on canvas
20.2 x 20.2 cm (7 15/16 x 7 15/16 inches)
Signed in stencil on the turnover edge
Provenance
Santa’s Ghetto, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2002
Keep It Real, 2002
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 134,500 / USD 210,555

Keep It Real, 2002
Stencil spray paint on canvas
51 x 40.5 cm (20 1/16 x 16 inches)
Signed in stencil on turnover edge
Provenance
Private Collection, UK (acquired directly from the artist in 2002)
Gift from the above to the present owner
Keep It Real, 2002
Bonhams London: 4 March 2014
GBP 134,500 / USD 176,361
Bonhams : Banksy (b. 1975) Keep It Real
BANKSY (b. 1975)
Keep It Real, 2002
Stencil spray-paint, emulsion and acrylic on canvas
61×61 cm (24×24 inches)
Stencil signature “BANKSY” lower right
Unique in its format

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 2002
‘Keep It Real’, 2002
GBP 15,600 / USD 22,585

Stencil spraypaint on canvas
20.3 x 20.3 cm (8×8 inches)
Signed in stencil on the overlap

Provenance
Santa’s Ghetto, Dragon Bar, Leonard Street, Shoreditch, East London
Keep It Real, 2002
Estimated: GBP 30,000 – 50,000

Keep It Real, 2002
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2002