Banksy mural looks set to appear at Bury St Edmunds museum after being removed from a wall in Nottingham
A second Banksy mural looks set to be displayed at a town museum after being removed from a wall in Nottingham.
John Brandler, owner of Brandler Galleries in Brentwood, Essex, spent 'a six-figure sum' to buy the mural, which appeared on the corner of Rothesay Avenue in Lenton in October before being removed early on Wednesday morning.
The 65-year-old said the artwork, which shows a girl hula hooping with a bike tyre, had started to form mould within its protective plastic casing, and he plans to restore it.
Mr Brandler hopes the mural can be displayed as part of Moyse's Hall Moments exhibition, in Bury St Edmunds, planned for later this year, and the exhibition could then move to Nottingham, where locals are said to have been upset by its removal.
“If I hadn’t bought it and removed it, in two years’ time there wouldn’t have been a Banksy there at all,” said Mr Brandler.
“I appreciate the council were trying to protect it from vandals coming along but actually it was creating a death sentence for it. I am pleased I’ve been able to save it from destruction.”
Mr Brandler said he is paying thousands of pounds to send the artwork to Scotland where it will be restored.
He has collected a number of Banksy’s pieces, including Season’s Greetings, which appeared on a garage in Port Talbot, Wales, in 2019.
“This isn’t a one-way street, work with me and it would be lovely to bring the whole show back [to Nottingham],” he added.
“Somebody told me it belongs to the people of Nottingham – no, it belonged to the person whose wall it was on.
“From what I hear they offered it to a number of organisations in Nottingham and nobody was interested.
“It’s very easy to say ‘we must keep it’ – all right, you pay for it, you pay for the maintenance, the security, the insurance, the restoration.”
Moyse's Hall's Moments exhibition will also feature another Banksy mural, Heart Boy, owned by Mr Brandler, alongside work by artists including Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst.
A spokesman for Moyse's Hall Museum, said: "We are in discussions and hope the mural can form part of the exhibition."
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