Graffiti is to complete its journey from urban eyesore to saleroom respectability with the world’s first auction devoted entirely to “street” art.

The 100 paintings on sale at Bonhams in London in February will include works by the Americans Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who pioneered the genre in the 1980s, and their British counterparts such as Antony Micallef and Banksy.

“What this sale does is show how urban art has emerged from an underground sub-culture to the mainstream,” said Gareth Williams, the urban art specialist at Bonhams. “In Britain this has only really happened in the past four or five years.”

The sale will include art executed on board, metal, canvas or wood as well as prints and flyposters. There will be no pieces of graffiti-strewn wall on sale.

Spray–painting on city walls is punishable with an on-the-spot fine of £75. Some artists, however, have succeeded in benefiting from its subversive image by spray-painting on canvas and declaring it “urban” or “street” art.

While Banksy, whose work has been bought by Brad Pitt and his girlfriend Angelina Jolie, is the best-known British urban artist, others have recently come to the fore.

Antony Micallef, 32, whose work sells for up to £350,000, has been bought by Christina Aguilera, Jude Law and Sharon Osbourne.

He also paints conventional pictures and, like Banksy, is represented by the London gallery Lazarides.

Other artists in the Bonhams sale include Space Invader, Swoon, D*Face, Adam Neate and Paul Insect, a pseudonym for the 36-year-old graphic designer Paul Humphrey. His portrait of Elvis Presley is estimated at £8,000.

Insect’s first exhibition, Bullion, was cancelled last summer after Damien Hirst bought the entire collection.

A stencil spray paint on wood by Faile – an American collective of three artists – is expected to sell for £5,000.

Others in the Bonhams sale include Shepard Fairey, a 37-year-old American often credited as the inspiration for Banksy.

This year Bonhams sold two works by Banksy, who guards his real identity but is thought to be 33 and from Bristol. A self portrait fetched £198,000 and a copy of a cover he painted for the Blur album Think Tank went for £228,000.

Although no single work in the sale is expected to reach these prices, one Banksy, a stencil spray painting on canvas, is estimated at £60,000 and a screen print of Kate Moss is priced at up to £30,000.

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