A Banksy poster that was censored for use on the Tube has been restored by an unidentified graffiti artist.  Transport for London (TfL) banned the halo dripping with paint on Banksy’s artwork promoting his film Exit Through The Gift Shop.  The poster was reworked and displayed without the offending drips.  But within days of it going up at London Bridge Tube on 11 March, the golden circle over the kneeling boy’s head was repainted.

The artwork has now been removed by Tube advertising bosses who said it was “defaced”.

Benjamin Moore from Art Below, the team behind the poster, part of a programme of art on the Underground, said he did not know who had amended the work but there was a chance it was the artist himself.

“It is either Banksy or one of his people. Or it could be a massive fan who wants the artwork to remain how it originally was,” he said.

“In the past he wrote to us and told us there are too many rules and regulations on the Tube.”

The work was originally designed as a free poster to go with a promotional pack of flyers produced for students regularly by organisation Don’t Panic.  The poster was free but, now many people are selling it on eBay,” said Mr Moore.

Mr Moore said that when the group first started working with artists around five years ago they had approached Banksy but he had turned them down.  A Transport for London spokesperson said: “The artwork in question was accepted for display on one site on the Tube network by CBS Outdoor, our advertising contractor, and was without the halo.  “However the artwork has been removed because it was subsequently defaced.”

Thanks to spoons / delete08 who confirmed the last one is actually Stewy.

Thanks to SlamXHype.

For two weeks only, Creative Gallery Woodstock are transforming their exhibition space into a platform to present some of the most exciting and pioneering works of graffiti art of recent times. Including a unique piece by Reading based graffiti/stencil artist Marvo, covering the gallery window.

Creative’s exhibition will follow the March 5th release of ‘Exit through the gift shop’, a documentary film following the world’s most infamous street artists.

All of the work is for sale and ranges in price from £250 to £20,000.

For further information, please contact Elizabeth or Alison: Creative Art Gallery, 43 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, OX20 1TJ. Alternatively telephone: 01993 810084, e-mail: info@creativeartgallery.co.uk or visit www.creativeartgallery.co.uk.