Heritage Auctions Prints and Multiples Signature Auction, held April 22, fetched $1.9 million. That nearly doubled the pre-auction estimate for the 81-lot event, due in large part to the overwhelming interest in works by Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, KAWS and David Hockney, among others. More than 500 bidders from around the globe participated in the auction, which was close to a complete sell-out. This was a blockbuster event filled with a whos-who of blue-chip artists, says Taylor Curry, the New York-based consignment director in Heritages Modern and Contemporary Art category. So its absolutely no surprise that we saw collectors respond accordingly. Five works by Banksy landed in the events Top 10, including the auctions top lot: a signed and numbered NOLA (White Rain), which realized $162,500, more than twice the pre-auction estimate. This 2008 work, featuring a seemingly confounded young girl holding an umbrella that brings the storm to her, is among the pseudonymous British hellraisers most famous and powerful works. Three years after Hurricane Katrina, and shortly before the arrival of Hurricane Gustav, the artist spray-painted the so-called Umbrella Girl at the corner of Kerlerec and North Rampart streets in the Marigny neighborhood along the Mississippi River. She was emblematic of every New Orleanian who believed they would be protected by the levees when the hurricane came, not drowned by them. The year of her creation, Banksy created a small run of prints featuring the girl being drenched by white rain. Those 289 screenprints, along with smaller colored iterations, would in short order become among his most sought-after pieces, as evidenced by Thursdays sale. In fact, this auction once again proved Banksy has never been more coveted among collectors. On Thursday, 2008s Very Little Helps realized $93,750, followed closely by 2005s Jack and Jill (Police Kids), which sold for $87,500. And in a sale that included some of Andy Warhols Campbell Soup cans, Banksys 2005 signature iteration, Soup Can (Violet/Orange/Mint), brought $81,250. Finally, Morons from 2005, his brutal shot at the auction world, realized $50,000. Pablo Picasso was well represented in this event by etchings, lithographs, aquatints and ceramics. But his top-seller was the extraordinary and oft-demanded engraved ceramic pitcher known as Taureau, or The Bull. This was executed in 1955, just nine years into Picassos pottery passion, which lasted the rest of his lifetime and, as his son, Claude, wrote, established his importance in the development of 20th-century art pottery. Befitting its rarity (it was one of 100 in a series) and significance, one collector took The Bull by the horns, paying $106,250. The breadth of this sale, whose offerings spanned decades, meant Picasso was joined by one of the 21st centurys brightest names and biggest stars, the man called KAWS. The former graffiti artists works have been in demand. The seven signed, numbered and dated screenprints from 2020s What Party?, made for a career retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, realized $81,250, while the 10 signed, numbered and dated prints from the limited-edition 2020 portfolio URGE brought $50,625. Of the seven Warhols in this event, top honors went to the purple-pink-and-blue Turtle made in 1985 to coincide with the release of Harold Pinters film Turtle Diary, realizing $62,500. By the end of the event, dozens of works realized well in to the five figures, remarkable results, according to Curry, that further strengthen Heritages place in the Prints and Multiples market. For further information, visit www.HA.com.