Port Talbot Banksy owner 'saddened' by council's public display plans
The owner of Banksy's first artwork in Wales has criticised a council's plans to put it on public view for just 12 hours after being locked away for seven months.
The Season's Greetings mural, which shows a child dressed for snow playing in the falling ash and smoke from a skip fire, has been kept from public view since it was cut from the side of a steelworker's garage in Port Talbot in May.
Art dealer John Brandler, who bought the piece for a six-figure sum, said he was "saddened" that Neath Port Talbot Council had only given the public a 48-hour notice the piece would be put on public display for 12 hours between Wednesday and Friday this week.
Essex-based Mr Brandler criticised the exhibit only being open between 11am and 3pm, saying most workers and children in school would miss out, and said he had not been invited by the council to the opening.
He had agreed for the piece to stay in an unused Ty'r Orsaf building in Port Talbot for up to three years so it could be viewed by locals and attract art fans from across the country.
He previously said his plans to turn the space into an international street art museum featuring other pieces in his collection had been frustrated by the council.
The mural was covered in resin and cut from the wall of a garage owned by steelworker Ian Lewis in the Taibach area of Port Talbot, before being loaded onto the back of a lorry and escorted by police to its current location.
Neath Port Talbot Council say they the opening has not not been widely promoted because they wanted to keep numbers "manageable."