July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Works by Banksy are disappearing from U.K. auctions as collectors shy away from paintings by graffiti artists in the financial slump.

British regional auction houses have canceled specialist sales of urban art in London, while some of their bigger rivals’ catalogs have few stenciled works by Banksy, who was born in Bristol, west England, and keeps his identity a secret.

Falling prices and rising failure rates for Banksy works earlier this year have made sellers reluctant to test the market with higher-value paintings. Auction prices for contemporary artists generally have dropped between 30 and 50 percent with the crisis, according to dealers.

“There’s no point flogging a dead horse,” Ben Hanly, contemporary-art specialist at the Edinburgh auctioneers, Lyon & Turnbull, said in an interview. “The core collectors have been decimated. Young City types don’t want to spend 20,000 pounds ($32,690) or 30,000 pounds on trendy art at the moment.”

There were no Banksy paintings to be seen at Sotheby’s, Christie’s International’s and Phillips de Pury’s evening contemporary-art auctions in London in June, or at Bonhams’s Vision 21 sale on July 1. Meanwhile Lyon & Turnbull and Berkshire-based auctioneer Dreweatt Neate both dropped standalone events.

Five Banksy sprayed-stenciled works, ranging in estimate from 7,000 pounds to 18,000 pounds, failed to sell at Lyon & Turnbull’s April 24 contemporary-art auction in London. The company’s October sale will contain a higher proportion of works by established 20th-century British artists, said Hanly.

‘Lasting’ Banksy

“Banksy will come back. He’s the one member of the urban art movement who will last,” Hanly said.

So far this year, 30 out of the 76 paintings and prints by Banksy that have appeared at live auctions in the U.K. and elsewhere have failed to sell, according to the Artnet database of results.

The highest auction price of 2009 was $230,500 achieved in May at Sotheby’s, New York, for the 2006 painting “Sale Ends Today.” In February last year, Banksy’s 2007 canvas “Keep it Spotless” sold for a record $1.9 million at Sotheby’s RED charity event in New York.

“The days of 100 percent selling rates for Banksy are over,” Alan Montgomery, senior specialist in charge of Bonhams’s biannual Vision 21 sales, which pioneered the auction market for the artist, said in an interview. “People are being pickier. The initial excitement is over and he’s become like other artists, but there is still a market there,” he said.

Paintings Fail

Bonhams decided to give the Banksy paintings market “a bit of a gap” at its auction on July 1, said Montgomery. Three out of six paintings by the artist, valued at up to 60,000 pounds, failed at Bonhams’s urban art event in February.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s did, however, include two Banksy paintings apiece in their recent day auctions of contemporary art in London, held on June 26 and July 1 respectively.

Different versions of “Flower Thrower” sold for 43,250 pounds at Sotheby’s and 46,850 pounds at Christie’s. Twelve months earlier, the same spray-painted composition sold for 67,250 pounds at auction.

Christie’s also sold on July 1 a version of Banksy’s signed 2007 screenprint, “Morons,” satirizing the collecting world, for 4,740 pounds. In October last year, at an urban art sale held in London by Dreweatt Neate, another version of the print fetched 7,800 pounds.

City Clients

“Signed Banksy prints have fallen in price between 30 to 40 percent, generic unsigned prints by as much as 80 percent,” Stephan Ludwig, chairman of Dreweatts said in an interview. “Our Banksy clients have tended to be younger people from the City, advertising and property worlds,” he said.

In the short term, the regional auctioneers have no plans for a London follow-up to their February urban-art auction at the Selfridges department store, said Ludwig.

At that London sale, Banksy’s unique 2008 spray-paint-on- steel work “No Ball Games” sold for a below-estimate 28,000 pounds. The 2003 painting “Heavy Weaponry” failed against a low estimate of 25,000 pounds.

“We’re shifting the focus of our urban art sales back to Bristol,” said Ludwig. Dreweatts is planning an urban-art auction at its branch in Banksy’s home city in late 2009 or early 2010.

The decline in popularity of the graffiti artist’s work at auction comes after fans stood in line for up to an hour to see his paintings at the Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery.

The free exhibition, “Banksy Versus Bristol Museum,” opened on June 13. More than 122,000 people have visited the show so far, said Jo Brooks, the reclusive artist’s spokeswoman. It closes on Aug. 31.

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Scott Reyburn in London at sreyburn@hotmail.com.

Last Updated: July 19, 2009 19:00 EDT