Morons (Sepia)

The auction that bought its own insult

Morons is a screenprint of a crowded auction room. Rows of bidders in dark clothes face the rostrum, where an auctioneer presents a framed canvas. On the canvas, in block capitals: 'I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MORONS ACTUALLY BUY THIS SHIT.' The room is formal, almost reverent, and nobody in it seems to notice the irony.

The scene is not invented. Researchers trace the composition to a photograph of the March 30, 1987, sale in London of Vincent van Gogh's Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers. Print sources give that price as GBP 22.5 million; the price paid was reported as the equivalent of $39,921,750, then a record for any work of art. Banksy kept the room and replaced the painting with his sign.

In the sepia version the color drains to the browns of an old archival photograph, which one researcher says reinforces the look of a historic auction picture. A writer on the print adds that the sepia version shows a bid of $750,450 on the auctioneer's price board.

Banksy and the market he mocks

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist who has never publicly confirmed his identity. He began as a freehand graffiti writer in Bristol in the early 1990s and turned to stencils by 2000, a technique that let him work faster. His stenciled images of political and social commentary have appeared on walls and bridges around the world.

By 2006 his work was selling at auction for sharply rising sums. On October 19, 2006, a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in London for GBP 50,400, then a record for his work. On February 21, 2007, Bombing Middle England sold in London for more than GBP 102,000, and Girl with Balloon for GBP 37,200. To coincide with the second day of those sales, according to a widely cited account, Banksy posted a new image on his website: an auction room bidding on a picture that read 'I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit.'

That was the paradox the print captures. Banksy mocked the market, and the market paid more for the mockery. In October 2018 a framed Girl with Balloon shredded itself through a device hidden in its frame moments after the hammer fell at auction in London; renamed Love Is in the Bin, it resold in 2021 for GBP 18,582,000.

Barely Legal, Los Angeles, 2006

Morons first appeared in connection with Barely Legal, the show Banksy staged in Los Angeles over the weekend of September 16, 2006, and billed as a 'three-day vandalised warehouse extravaganza.' Its centerpiece was a live elephant painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern, which leaflets said was meant to draw attention to world poverty. After complaints from animal rights activists it appeared unpainted on the final day.

A white and gold edition of Morons, the LA Edition, was released at the show. Catalogers give that edition as 150 signed and 500 unsigned, of which only 100 unsigned were printed, plus 6 signed printer's proofs. One account says the unsigned prints sold there for $500 each.

The sources do not fully agree on the sequence. Print catalogers date the image to the 2006 LA show, while a widely cited account dates its appearance on Banksy's website to February 2007. The catalog record used here dates the overall Morons image 2006-2007 and the signed sepia edition 2007.

Telling the versions apart

Morons exists in several editions, all screenprints on a 56 x 76 cm sheet printed and published by Banksy's London print publisher. The standard black and white Morons came as 150 signed and 500 unsigned. The LA Edition is the white and gold version from Barely Legal. Morons (Sepia) is a signed edition of 300. A grey VIP version was issued as 30 signed artist's proofs.

The sepia edition is the one this page tracks. It is signed and numbered out of 300 and printed on Arches wove paper. The only strong color in the image is the gold frame around the sign, against an otherwise monochrome room.

One related object is far rarer: Girl with Balloon and Morons Sepia, a double-sided sheet from 2007 in an edition of 8, with Girl with Balloon spray-painted through a stencil on one side and Morons Sepia screenprinted on the other. Held to the light, the girl appears to enter the auction room. Example 2/8 sold in London on October 20, 2020, for GBP 1,232,500 ($1,609,580), and 3/8 sold in Hong Kong on December 1, 2022, for HK$5,670,000 (US$726,460). Because it is a different work, it is not in the price chart for this page.

From $6,250 to six figures and back

Morons (Sepia) has one of the deepest auction records of any signed Banksy edition. One market tracker counts 39 auction sales since the first in 2007; a research site lists more than 50 single-impression results from October 2007 to September 2026. The early sales were modest: impression 165/300 sold in New York on November 2, 2007, for $6,250, and as late as July 2010 an impression brought $3,680.

Prices rose steadily after 2016 and then jumped during 2020 and 2021, when demand for signed Banksy editions surged. Impression 39/300 set the edition's auction record on September 17, 2021, at GBP 107,100, reported as $148,870. Results above GBP 80,000 and GBP 100,000 followed into 2022.

Then the market corrected. The researcher's median for the sepia edition fell from GBP 36,000 in 2024 to GBP 28,125 in 2025, a 22% drop, and an October 2025 sale at GBP 27,040 was about 25% of the 2021 peak. The most recent result found, impression 130/300 on September 24, 2026, brought GBP 25,600, reported as $34,190.

Some impressions keep coming back. Number 187/300 sold in London in October 2008 and again in March 2011; 235/300 sold in April 2019 and again five months later. Every sale adds another round to the joke printed on the sheet.

A print that proves its own point

Morons works because it cannot be escaped. The bidders in the picture are the target, but so is anyone who buys, admires or prices the print, including the person reading its auction record. As one researcher puts it, each transaction becomes part of the work's extended performance.

That makes it one of the clearest statements of Banksy's relationship with the art market: critical of it, inside it, and well aware of both.

The numbers

Medium

Screenprint in colors on Arches wove paper

Dimensions

Sheet 56 x 76 cm (22 x 30 in.); also given as 55.9 x 76.2 cm

Edition

300 signed and numbered (Sepia); related editions: 150 signed and 500 unsigned (black and white), LA Edition, 30 grey VIP artist's proofs

Catalogue raisonne

None stated in the sources consulted

Date

2007 for the sepia edition per most catalogers; the overall Morons image is dated 2006-2007

Current owners

Impressions are in private hands; no public collection holding is stated in the sources consulted

Timeline

1. Mar 30, 1987

   Van Gogh's Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers sells at auction in London for a record price; a photograph of the sale becomes the basis for Morons.

2. Sep 16, 2006

   Banksy's Barely Legal show opens for a weekend in Los Angeles; the Morons LA Edition is released there.

3. Oct 19, 2006

   A set of Banksy's Kate Moss paintings sells in London for GBP 50,400, then his auction record.

4. 2007

   Morons (Sepia) is issued as a signed screenprint edition of 300.

5. Feb 21, 2007

   Bombing Middle England sells in London for more than GBP 102,000, a new Banksy record.

6. Feb 2007

   Banksy posts the auction-room image to his website on the second day of London sales, according to a widely cited account.

7. Oct 12, 2007

   Earliest sepia sale in the research list: impression 182/300, GBP 7,800 in the UK.

8. Nov 2, 2007

   Impression 165/300 sells at auction in New York for $6,250.

9. Sep 18, 2008

   Impression 229/300 sells in the UK for GBP 2,000 (reported as $3,625), the lowest result in the list.

10. Oct 2018

    A framed Girl with Balloon shreds itself as the hammer falls at auction in London.

11. Oct 20, 2020

    The double-sided Girl with Balloon and Morons Sepia, 2/8, sells in London for GBP 1,232,500.

12. Sep 17, 2021

    Impression 39/300 sets the sepia edition's auction record at GBP 107,100 ($148,870).

13. Aug 17, 2022

    Impression 220/300 brings GBP 100,800 ($120,960), the last six-figure result in the list.

14. Mar 26, 2024

    Impression 273/300 sells for GBP 56,700 ($71,910) in a UK online sale.

15. Oct 15, 2025

    An October sale at GBP 27,040 lands at about a quarter of the 2021 peak.

16. Sep 24, 2026

    Impression 130/300 sells for GBP 25,600 ($34,190), the latest result found.

The world in 2007

• Jan 9, 2007

  Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco.

• Apr 27, 2007

  Banksy's Space Girl and Bird sells in London for GBP 288,000, about 20 times its estimate.

• May 6, 2007

  Nicolas Sarkozy is elected president of France.

• May 10, 2007

  Tony Blair announces he will step down as British prime minister.

• May 21, 2007

  Banksy is named art's Greatest Living Briton and, as expected, does not turn up to collect the award.

• Jun 27, 2007

  Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair as prime minister of the United Kingdom.

• Jun 29, 2007

  The iPhone goes on sale in the United States.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Morons (Sepia) is number 64 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (49 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The auction room in Morons is based on a photograph of the 1987 London sale of van Gogh's Sunflowers, then the most expensive painting ever sold.
• In the research list, the cheapest sepia impression sold for GBP 2,000 (reported as $3,625) in 2008 and the most expensive for GBP 107,100 ($148,870) in 2021.
• Impression 235/300 sold twice in 2019, in April and again in September.
• A double-sided version pairs Morons Sepia with a hand-sprayed Girl with Balloon; held to the light, the girl seems to walk into the auction room.
• Of the 500 unsigned prints planned for the LA Edition, catalogers say only 100 were printed.
• Banksy was voted art's Greatest Living Briton in May 2007 and did not show up to collect the award.