Image slideshow
Twenty First Century City by Ben Eine was among the official gifts to Barack Obama from David Cameron on his first trip to Washington as prime minister, and has catapulted the artist into the media spotlight.
The work, Twenty First Century City was hanging in our London gallery until the Ben Eine came to pick it up last week. Even Ben did not know exactly who the recipient would be but was asked if he would be interested in David Cameron having one of his paintings to give to a powerful American man as a gift. It was a recent collaboration with Anya Hindmarch on a designer bag that first bough his work to the attention of Samantha Cameron.
As a result of the gift Ben Eine has received a huge amount of media attention and increased interest in his work
Ben Eine last came to the media's attention when he persuaded the shopkeepers of Middlesex Street in Spitalfields to allow him to paint the entire alphabet, in his trademark vibrant, cheerful colours, on their closed security shutters. His work can also be seen in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and Paris, as well as Brighton and Hastings, where he now lives.
Ben Eine is not just a master graffiti artist though he is also the man behind the printing of some of the most iconic works to come out of the Pictures on Walls studio over the last five years. Eine’s screen printing skills have helped produce some of street arts most sort after prints from arguably the greatest street artist on the planet including Banksy, Faile and his own work.
In exchange President Obama gave David Cameron a signed lithograph by Ed Ruscha, a major American Pop Artist who recently had a retrospective exhibition and the Hayward gallery.