A legendary street artist has said it is “disgusting” after his latest mural was tagged with graffiti.

Iconic French artist Blek le Rat, described as the “father of stencil graffiti”, was in Brighton painting a commission of a violinist on the wall of Art Republic in Bond Street.

However, just two weeks after the piece went up the stencil art has now been defaced and daubed with the letters “PWS?” in yellow paint.

Blek le Rat, whose real name is Xavier Prou, said he found it “disgusting” and “not fair play at all”.

He slammed the vandals saying what they did was “against the rules of graffiti” after he travelled over from France and spent approximately two hours painting the piece.

The street artist has a reputation as one of the most influential figures in the subculture and is accredited as the man who inspired Banksy.

Laurence Alkin, owner of Art Republic, said it was “unbelievable” and added: “I honestly think this one is just mindless vandalism.”

He said: “We cannot do much with it now. We are hoping Blek will be back over soon and we can offer him another piece but we will not be able to get that yellow tag off.”

Brighton based artist Cassette Lord said it was an “unspoken rule” between streets artists not to damage each other’s work and said Mr Prou commands “a lot of respect”.

Cassette Lord, real name Martin Middleton, said: “There should be respect for the work if it is well executed or well finished. If you put your head up above the parapet and put something on the street you are putting yourself out there but there is a rule of understanding and respect.

“If you are going to do something like it is a cuss and everyone knows that.”

Brighton is famed for its street art and graffiti and was the original home of Banksy’s famous kissing coppers mural.

Dan Hipkin, director of Ink_d Gallery and Studio in Brighton, said: “People will tend to go over other people’s work – there are groups of painters or graffiti artists who are purists and they believe graffiti is one thing.

“They may be objecting to something being put up as public art. It is a hard one and there are some walls in Brighton which will be gone over straight away if artists use it – it is sort of an unspoken politics. I think regardless of Blek’s notoriety it is sad to see anyone’s work or creativity gone over the top of.”