Banksy Kate Moss Crude Oils, 2005

14.8 x 10.5 cm

Banksy’s Kate Moss from his Crude Oils series (2005) is a sharp, tongue-in-cheek homage to Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe portraits, reimagined for the age of supermodels and celebrity culture. The work replaces Warhol’s iconic image of Monroe with that of British model Kate Moss, rendered in vivid Pop Art tones — lemon yellow hair, turquoise eyeshadow, candy-pink skin, and crimson lips — against a flat pastel backdrop.

Created around the time of Banksy’s Crude Oils exhibition in London, where the artist staged a “gallery of re-mixed masterpieces, vandalism, and vermin,” this postcard captures his fascination with appropriation and the commodification of fame. By substituting Monroe with Moss, Banksy underscores the cyclical nature of pop-culture icons — how society continually replaces one symbol of beauty with another, each destined for the same level of public obsession and overexposure.

The choice of Moss, a contemporary British figure synonymous with glamour, scandal, and tabloid intrigue, transforms the image into a commentary on the post-modern cult of celebrity. Banksy exposes the machinery of fame as both alluring and absurd — a mirror reflecting society’s fixation with surface and spectacle.

Playful yet biting, Kate Moss (Crude Oils) fuses street sensibility with Pop Art history, linking Banksy’s own brand of cultural critique to Warhol’s legacy of repetition and mass production. What began as a mischievous parody has become one of Banksy’s most recognizable and desirable images — a modern icon for the age of media saturation.