Trust, Not Access
How £250,000 went missing in a Banksy deal: transparency—not proximity—is the real currency.
A story hit my inbox several times this week that every collector and advisor should pay attention to.
According to a recent report vy Riah Pryor in The Art Newspaper, British television presenters Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly—better known as Ant and Dec—have gone to court seeking details behind a series of Banksy print transactions. The pair say they paid £550,000 for six prints, but the dealer who ultimately supplied the works allegedly received only £300,000. The remaining £250,000 sits at the center of the dispute.
Their concern, as reported in the filing, is that "secret and unauthorised profits" may have been taken somewhere within the chain of intermediaries involved in the deal.
The High Court has agreed there is an "arguable case" and has ordered disclosure of transaction details to determine what actually happened inside the sale.
For people inside the art world, stories like this are not shocking.
But they should still stop us.
Because the lesson here isn't about Banksy. It isn't about celebrity collectors. And it isn't even about the specific dispute now moving through the courts.
It's about transparency and the absence of it.
The uncomfortable truth about how some art deals happen
I've worked inside the art market long enough to have seen transactions structured in ways that would surprise most collectors.
Not illegal. Not even unethical.
But often opaque.
The art market is still largely relationship-driven. Works move through networks of galleries, advisors, dealers, consultants, brokers, and intermediaries whose roles are not always fully visible to the buyer.
Fees and commissions exist.
Sometimes those structures are disclosed clearly. Sometimes they're not.
And sometimes collectors assume the person advising them is acting purely in their interest—without realizing how many layers might exist between them and the actual seller.
I've seen client-advisor or client-designer relationships deteriorate in front of me— mainly because the client wasn't aware of a trade discount (the price offered to the broker between the gallery and client). In bad faith, I've seen advisors pocket the difference between the listed price (paid by the client) and the trade discount (commission paid to the broker) without the collector's knoweldge.
The Ant and Dec case illustrates what happens when that opacity breaks down.
A collector should never have to ask the question: where did my money actually go?
Access isn't the real value
One of the myths of the art world is that the most valuable advisors are the ones with the most access.
Access to artists, estates, or works before anyone else sees them.
But access is not the real currency. Trust is, and trust requires clarity.
Collectors should always understand:
- who represents their best interests (and these should be clearly defined prior to engaging in any sale agreement)
- who represents the seller
- what commissions are being paid
- whether the advisor is acting as agent or principal
- and how the final price was constructed
These are not uncomfortable questions.
They are professional ones.
In finance, real estate, and most other asset markets, these disclosures are standard practice. The art market has historically operated with more discretion—but discretion should never be confused with secrecy.
Collectors today are more informed than ever. They read auction results. They track exhibitions. They compare prices across galleries and fairs. And increasingly they expect the same thing they would expect in any other sophisticated market: clarity.
I'm not suggesting that all or nearly most advisors/designers/brokers operate in bad faith—far from it. Some of my most treasured relationships and beautiful collaborations have come from these connections.
The point is: when everyone understands how a deal works, the conversation shifts from suspicion to strategy.
And that's where the real work of collecting begins.
Public artist talk at West Chelsea Contemporary with DanLife
Footnote: Riah Pryor, "UK presenters Ant and Dec take legal action over 'secret and unauthorised £250,000 profit' made from Banksy prints," The Art Newspaper, 6 March 2026.
