TWO Laura Ashley wallpaper prints designed by David Bowie, failed to sell at auction.

The rolls, which were almost certainly printed in Powys, had been expected to sell for up to £56,000 at a prints and multiples auction last month.

But when they were put up for sale online with auction house giant Sotheby's on April 28, the musical icon's prints could not find a Buyer.

The singer and actor, who died in 2016, produced the designs in 1995 with British homeware brand Laura Ashley.

They were almost certainly made at the firm's Texplan factory in Newtown.

The first, titled Conflict, depicts Lucian Freud's nude artwork Painter Working, Reflection from 1993, submerged in the kind of formaldehyde tank made famous by Damien Hirst.

It was conceived for Bowie's debut exhibition, New Afro/Pagan and Work: 1975-1995, held on London's Cork Street in 1995, where it was plastered across a series of columns.

In an interview in 1996, Bowie said of the design: "It involved creating pilasters; half-columns against a wall covered in an incongruous wallpaper...

"I couldn't find anyone to print it, because it's hard to get wallpaper printed, and then Laura Ashley offered to print it for me.

"This particular one is an English painter called Lucian Freud in a Damien Hirst box, so it's traditional art in the hands of modern art."

The second design, Minotaur, pays homage to Pablo Picasso.

Both designs are set against a backdrop of traditional English chintz.