Canadian police have launched an investigation after the theft of a Banksy print from an unauthorized exhibit of the guerrilla graffiti artist’s work in Toronto.
“We were called about a break and enter in the city’s west end,” said Constable Jenifferjit Sidhu on Thursday. “At some point last Sunday a Banksy print was removed from the exhibit.”
The stolen Trolley Hunters print depicts crouching men in loin cloths armed with stone-tipped wooden spears and axes as they hunt grocery shopping carts in a grassy field. Its value is estimated at C$45,000 ($34,000), Sidhu said.
The Art of Banksy exhibit – curated by his former manager Steve Lazarides, but reportedly not endorsed by the artist himself – opened on Wednesday in a Toronto industrial building dressed up as an art gallery, as part of a larger North American run.
Displaying about 80 works on loan from collectors, including sculptures, screen prints, canvases and multimedia pieces, it has been billed as the largest collection of Banksy works ever assembled.
The exhibit runs until 11 July.