Two decades after it emerged as an art form, graffiti is finally coming of age. The feral youths with their cans of spray paint are still out there on the railway lines, but there’s also a new generation of urban artists wielding posters, stickers and stencils. Or, in the case of Delta, from Amsterdam, and Seen, in New York, neon signage and construction tools.

The work of these two artists, and of many other others, is now highly collectable. “Street art has finally found an audience that perceives it for what it really is: not disposable art, but modern masterpieces,” says D*face, the London-based artist who, like so many practitioners, works under a nom de plume, because, despite the increasing commercialism, graffiti on public property remains illegal.

Original canvases are highly sought after, attracting star buyers and huge price tags: Angelina Jolie reportedly spent £200,000 on Banksy’s work in a Los Angeles sale recently, while his Mona Lisa fetched a cool £57,600 at Sotheby’s. “Work by Banksy, Kelsey Brookes and Lucy McLauchlan sells out in a matter of hours,” says Steph Warren of Pictures on Walls (POW), a hip London outfit that sells screen prints by many collectable urban artists, including D*face. “Prices range from £25 to £500, and they’re worth several times that the minute they’re sold,” she adds.

This is a bone of contention for those wanting to keep the art form affordable, and it certainly goes against the ethos of the original movement. On POW’s website, the company (jokingly) claims responsibility for the recent death of Alexander Litvinenko, declaring it was a revenge attack for the fact that the Russian had bought a Banksy print, only to sell it the next day on eBay for thousands.

“A huge polarisation started about 18 months ago,” says the artist Eine, who co-founded POW. “Banksy’s book, Wall and Piece, became a bestseller, the subculture went mainstream and prices of original work rocketed.” Now prints, especially limited-edition runs, are starting to do the same.

Seen, who has been collecting urban art for 25 years, puts this new success down to graffiti artists growing up. “The generation of artists that started the movement now own homes, so they buy art that’s relevant to them,” he says. His own Bronx apartment houses examples ranging from Don D and Blade from the 1980s to Banksy’s contemporary pieces; it is practically an anthology of street art.

Today’s urban artists are just as keen as their forerunners to get their message across, although the new scene is sustained by slick websites and photography. Thanks also to CCTV, and the general pointlessness of being arrested, the kudos once gained for “bombing” a risky spot has been replaced by graphic skill that may even be shown in the Tate Modern in years to come. And not just because Banksy has nipped in to stick it up himself.

No doubt the Jolie-Pitt residence already looks like a Banksy show, while the walls of Jamie Oliver’s home in the country are covered with huge pig paintings and camouflage clouds. “Indoors, you have more time to craft, as you’re not looking over your shoulder,” says Insa, the artist who painted Oliver’s home and his restaurant, Fifteen, in London. The recently opened Fifteen Cornwall, in Watergate Bay, is suitably splashed with surf graffiti by Ross Imms, which offsets perfectly the Marcel Wanders dining chairs and pink chandeliers.

Buying original art or commissioning murals can obviously be quite a commitment, yet there is plenty within everyone’s reach. Screen prints start from as little as £25; Onit Design sells furniture emblazoned with designs by artists such as Tizer; and the digital art from Eboy combines street with computer-game graphics to create cityscapes on cushions, lampshades and wrapping paper. For something low-maintenance and transitory, try the Space Projector, from the lighting company Mathmos, which splashes designs by Timorous Beasties across walls. Just turn it off when you get bored.

On the back of Banksy’s literary success, a rash of books about street art has also appeared. Glossy tomes, such as Graffiti World and Graffiti Woman, by Nicholas Ganz (Thames & Hudson, £19.95 each), himself a former street artist, are style statements in their own right. Start collecting while you still can.

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