In late 2022, an ambulance pulled as much as a bombed-out condominium constructing on this village exterior Kyiv. Three individuals emerged. One wore a grey hoodie, one other a baseball cap. Each had masks protecting their faces.
The third was extra simply identifiable: He was unmasked, and had one arm and two prosthetic legs, witnesses informed Reuters.
The masked males carried cardboard stencils from the ambulance and taped them to what had been an inside wall of an condominium earlier than the Russians obliterated the place. Then they pulled out cans of spray paint and set to work. An absurd picture appeared in minutes: a bearded man in a tub, scrubbing his again amid the wreckage.
Its creator was Banksy, one of many world’s hottest and enigmatic artists, whose id has been debated and intently guarded for many years. Banksy is greatest identified for easy but subtle stencil work with searing social commentary. His work has generated tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in gross sales through the years. As soon as an annoyance to authorities who seen him as a vandal, he has grow to be a British nationwide treasure. In a single survey, Brits rated him extra standard than Rembrandt and Monet. In one other ballot, his “Woman with Balloon” portray was voted the favourite piece of paintings Britain has produced.
Some critics imagine Banksy’s anonymity is as essential to his work as stencils and paint. The British press has run many articles through the years that attempted to infer his id. Nonetheless, Banksy and his inside circle received’t discuss it. Some have signed non-disclosure agreements. Others preserve quiet out of loyalty, or concern of crossing the artist, his followers and his influential firm, Pest Management Workplace, which authenticates his work and decides who will get the primary probability to purchase Banksy’s newest items. When the bath mural and different Banksy items started showing in Ukraine, Reuters puzzled in regards to the artist and the way he had pulled off the stunt. Horenka was lower than 5 miles east of Bucha, the place Russian forces had left behind a minimum of 300 civilians useless seven months earlier.
So we got down to decide how Banksy did it – and who he actually is. Weeks later, a reporter visited Horenka with a photograph lineup of graffiti artists typically rumored to be the artist and confirmed the photographs to locals to see if anybody acknowledged him. Not lengthy after, we heard {that a} well-known British musician – one of many individuals typically whispered to be Banksy – had been noticed in Kyiv, giving us a idea to pursue.
Reuters interviewed a dozen Banksy-world insiders and specialists. None would touch upon his id, however many crammed in particulars about his life and profession. We examined pictures of the artist, most of which obscured his face however contained important data. We later unearthed beforehand undisclosed U.S. court docket data and police stories.
These included a hand-written confession by the artist to a long-ago misdemeanour cost of disorderly conduct – a doc that exposed, past dispute, Banksy’s true id.
And within the course of, we discovered how and why the person behind the identify Banksy vanished from the general public file greater than a decade in the past.
Reuters offered that man with its findings about his id and detailed questions on his work and profession. He didn’t reply. Banksy’s firm, Pest Management, stated the artist “has determined to say nothing.”
His long-time lawyer, Mark Stephens, wrote to Reuters that Banksy “doesn’t settle for that lots of the particulars contained inside your enquiry are appropriate.” He didn’t elaborate. With out confirming or denying Banksy’s id, Mr. Stephens urged us to not publish this report, saying doing so would violate the artist’s privateness, intervene along with his artwork and put him in peril.
For years, Mr. Stephens wrote, Banksy has “been subjected to fixated, threatening and extremist behaviour.” (He declined to explain these threats.) Unmasking Banksy would hurt the general public, too, Mr. Stephens wrote.
Working “anonymously or underneath a pseudonym serves very important societal pursuits,” he wrote. “It protects freedom of expression by permitting creators to talk fact to energy with out concern of retaliation, censorship or persecution – notably when addressing delicate points akin to politics, faith or social justice.”
Reuters took under consideration Banksy’s privateness claims – and the truth that a lot of his followers want for him to stay nameless. But we concluded that the general public has a deep curiosity in understanding the id and profession of a determine along with his profound and enduring affect on tradition, the artwork trade and worldwide political discourse. In so doing, we utilized the identical precept Reuters makes use of all over the place. The individuals and establishments who search to form social and political discourse are topic to scrutiny, accountability, and, generally, unmasking. Banksy’s anonymity – a deliberate, public-facing, and worthwhile function of his work – has enabled him to function with out such transparency.
As for the danger he would possibly face of retaliation or censorship, Britain’s authorized and political institutions appear snug with Banksy’s messages and the way he delivers them.
On September 7, for instance, he stenciled a provocative piece on the outside wall of London’s Royal Courts of Justice, a traditionally protected constructing. It depicted a decide in wig and robes bashing an unarmed protester with a gavel. Two months earlier, the federal government had designated the pro-Palestinian group Palestine Motion as a terrorist group. The day earlier than the portray appeared, about 900 individuals had been arrested at protests in opposition to the ban.
Stephens didn’t reply to a query about whether or not the mural was tied to that crackdown. In any occasion, Banksy’s painted protest in opposition to British justice seems to have gotten a cross up to now.
Below native legal guidelines, graffiti is against the law, with penalties starting from fines and neighborhood service to (not often) jail time. The day after the mural went up, London’s Metropolitan Police stated it was investigating “a report of felony harm” to the constructing. An investigation stays underneath approach, the Ministry of Justice stated. The mural was power-washed off the wall, abandoning a shadow of the picture. In response to a Freedom of Data Act request, the ministry stated that as of December, the federal government had spent £23,690 eradicating the piece. The work continues, it stated: Subsequent, specialist contractors will use laser tools on the stain.
The justice ministry declined to say whether or not Banksy was penalized or paid compensation. Stephens had no remark. Some artists have questioned if Banksy, as soon as thought-about anti-establishment, now enjoys particular remedy from Britain’s powers that be. In 2014, Vice Media requested: “Why Is Banksy the Solely Particular person Allowed to Vandalize Britain’s Partitions?” The story quoted David Velocity, a road artist who ran a British graffiti collective. “It’s very a lot one rule for him and one other rule for everybody else,” Velocity informed Vice. “When road artists do it, it’s vandalism. When Banksy does it, it’s an artwork piece.”
Contacted by Reuters, Velocity praised Banksy as “a very essential artist of contemporary occasions.” But he nonetheless wonders why “one artist ought to have the ability to have carte blanche and everybody else could be topic to penalties.”
“Is he above the legislation?” Velocity stated. “The proof would recommend that he’s.”
Some specialists imagine Banksy’s potential to make use of the world as his canvas is cash within the financial institution. One analyst, MyArtBroker, noticed that the Royal Courts of Justice mural helped bolster Banksy’s market worth.
Though such public items “can’t be monetised instantly, they keep visibility and authorship – qualities that preserve collector confidence excessive and demand energetic,” artwork funding web site MyArtBroker wrote in a report on the 2025 marketplace for Banksy’s work. Banksy’s “road interventions,” it stated, assist prop up demand and costs for his artwork as an entire. One Banksy piece was bought by Sotheby’s for £4.2 million ($5.7 million) final 12 months, the report famous.
Banksy lawyer Stephens didn’t reply questions on whether or not Banksy has been penalized for his exploits. However he famous that some homeowners are completely satisfied when he paints on their buildings. “It seems that if individuals discover a Banksy added to their wall, most of them name Sotheby’s slightly than the police,” he wrote. “The query of the place the artist’s work sits within the authorized panorama is an attention-grabbing one, and I’m as bemused as anybody else.”
That is the story of the artwork, commerce and paradox of Banksy, arguably probably the most well-known nameless man on the planet. The journey to grasp him started in Ukraine and took us to a billboard in New York’s Meatpacking District, and the partitions and public sale homes of London.
The photograph lineup
For 1 / 4 of a century, Banksy has created the impression that he may be anyplace, at any time, and go unnoticed. Looking for clues to his id feels “like a treasure hunt,” stated Ulrich Blanche, an artwork historian and Banksy professional. After the Ukraine murals appeared, Banksy posted a video on his Instagram confirming the items had been his. The footage additionally confirmed a painter sporting a grey hoodie in Horenka. It was filmed from behind the person, hiding his face. We went again to the village in hopes that locals had a greater view.
Among the many potential Banksys within the Reuters photograph lineup was Thierry Guetta, a road artist who goes by Mr Brainwash. Guetta was featured in Banksy’s Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary, “Exit By the Reward Store.” Guetta is French; Banksy has stated he’s from Bristol, England. Given Guetta’s nationality and his position within the movie, he appeared a longshot candidate. Nonetheless, the concept that Banksy would covertly function himself on display would possibly match along with his fame as a prankster who hides in plain sight.
One other candidate, maybe the prime one, was Robin Gunningham. The Bristol native had been “unmasked” as Banksy in 2008 by The Mail on Sunday. The British tabloid stated its year-long investigation had “come as shut as anybody probably can to revealing” Banksy’s id. However it hedged a bit. Its cowl featured a photograph of a person “believed to be Banksy.” When the photograph first surfaced years earlier than the 2008 story, the artist’s supervisor denied it depicted Banksy. A 3rd artist within the lineup was additionally from Bristol: Robert Del Naja, frontman of trip-hop band Large Assault. A graffiti pioneer often called 3D, Del Naja hosted a 2013 exhibition of artwork he produced for Large Assault. It was held on the London gallery of Banksy’s former supervisor, Steve Lazarides. In 2016, a Scottish author had discovered that a number of Banksy road items appeared on the identical places and across the identical time Large Assault had simply carried out.
Horenka resident Tetiana Reznychenko informed us she made espresso for the 2 males who did the bath mural and noticed the 2 painters with out their masks. As we swiped by means of the lineup on a cellphone, Reznychenko shook her head no. Then, when proven one of many pictures, her eyes widened, at the same time as she denied having seen the person within the image.
That man was Robert Del Naja.
The response proved nothing. However it made sense given another data we later found. We additionally discovered that the 2 males who painted the wall had been escorted there by Giles Duley, the person with one arm and two prosthetic legs. Duley, a documentary photographer, misplaced his limbs in Afghanistan in 2011. His Legacy of Conflict Basis donates ambulances to native NGOs in Ukraine. After portray the Ukraine murals, Banksy publicly thanked Duley for lending him an ambulance to journey within the area.
Duley had an attention-grabbing hyperlink to at least one candidate. His images has served as backdrop visuals at concert events of Large Assault, Del Naja’s band.
Not lengthy after the Reznychenko interview, we obtained one other tantalizing lead. A supply had stopped by the Kyiv Hilton throughout Banksy’s time in Ukraine.
“You’ll by no means fucking guess who I met,” the supply stated. “Robert Del Naja of Large Assault!”
We later discovered from individuals conversant in Ukrainian immigration procedures that Duley and Del Naja had certainly entered Ukraine. They crossed the border with Poland on October 28, 2022 – shortly earlier than the Banksy murals started to appear.
However there was no proof that Gunningham, Guetta or every other rumored Banksy traveled to Ukraine in that interval.
That left a puzzle: Apart from Del Naja, who was the opposite painter Duley took to Horenka? Del Naja didn’t reply to questions despatched through his band’s supervisor. Duley, reached by electronic mail, stated: “I’d depart that to Banksy’s crew.”
The attract of anonymity
Some critics imagine Banksy’s potential to color at lightning pace in public and evade detection is “a giant a part of his work, or his most essential work,” stated scholar Blanche. “This anonymity is a press release in itself.”
His mastery of disguise started as a approach of shaking the police, says former supervisor Lazarides. In an interview, Lazarides stated anonymity served a sensible objective in Bristol, the place authorities enforced “draconian” insurance policies in opposition to graffiti. “Banksy’s anonymity, to begin with, was precisely that: It was to evade legislation authorities,” he stated.
Anonymity grew to become integral to the model. In 2010, when TIME journal named him one of many world’s most influential individuals, Banksy appeared in a photograph portrait sporting a bag over his head.
Regardless of such affect and recognition, a lot of the world’s prime museums don’t show his work. These contacted by Reuters politely declined to clarify why. One among them, Britain’s Nationwide Portrait Gallery, owns a photograph portrait of Banksy in a hooded coat and a chimpanzee masks. A gallery spokesperson stated the portrait is in its assortment as a result of “the artist himself is a British determine of cultural and social significance.” It isn’t presently on show.
Banksy has advanced as an artist, from portray road items to creating an Oscar-nominated film to making a resort on the West Financial institution and a satirical theme park known as Dismaland. He was fast to make use of the Web and different digital instruments to unfold his work. Early on, he registered an internet site the place his crew posted on-line photographs of his road artwork. Photos that obtained probably the most clicks had been mass-produced and bought as display prints.
How a lot would the revelation of Banksy’s id have an effect on the worth of his work? Reuters contacted greater than a dozen main galleries, museums and public sale homes. Most declined to touch upon Banksy. Views differ amongst those that spoke.
One of many largest Banksy sellers, Acoris Andipa, stated his purchasers are enticed by the artwork, “not as a result of he’s masked, not as a result of he’s a Robin Hood-character.”
Gallery proprietor and supplier Robert Casterline sees a possible drop available in the market worth of Banksy’s work. “It relies upon how he spins it,” Casterline stated of the best way Banksy responds to being named. “And it depends upon what he creates subsequent and whether or not somebody desires to hold it on their wall.”
Banksy is “not doing something mind-shattering. Half of his work are sprayed stencils.” Even so, Banksy has “created one thing superb,” Casterline stated. “He formulated a recipe that the media grew to become enamored with. He created that mystique.”
That mystique has been monetized. In 2024, former supervisor Lazarides auctioned off artwork and private artifacts, together with 15 burner telephones as soon as used “for contacting Banksy.” The telephone assortment fetched $15,875.
Reuters examined what Banksy and folks near him have divulged about his id. A lot pointed to Del Naja and bolstered our idea that Banksy was Del Naja, who immigration sources informed us was in Ukraine when the murals appeared.
In previous media interviews, Banksy talked about his hometown of Bristol in southwest England, identified for its street-art and music scenes. Bristol is the place Del Naja started to color as the road artist 3D. Some credit score him with bringing stencil graffiti – Banksy’s trademark medium – to Britain.
In a 2014 interview with Very Almost Virtually journal, Del Naja stated he grew within the type due to stencils distributed with data by anarchist punk bands. One band specifically hyperlinks Del Naja to Banksy. “I keep in mind getting data from Crass,” Del Naja stated.
Crass revealed its personal fanzines. One gave detailed directions for followers to make their very own stencils. A long time later, Banksy provided comparable directions in his personal publications. Crass printed its work underneath its personal imprint, “Exitstencil Press.” One among Banksy’s self-published fanzines was equally titled “Existencilism.” A Crass poster is featured in a diorama of Banksy’s boyhood bed room that the artist created for his Lower & Run exhibition in 2023. Like Banksy, Crass has denounced fascism and authoritarianism and advocated pacifism, feminism and environmentalism. The anarchy image finally grew to become widespread in Banksy’s work. As we speak he funds a ship that helps rescue migrants within the Mediterranean Sea. It’s named the Louise Michel, after one in every of France’s most well-known anarchists. His “Devolved Parliament,” exhibiting Britain’s Home of Commons crammed with chimpanzees, exemplifies his talent at sticking it to authority.
An important clue
On Instagram in June 2018, Banksy posted a sequence of rats he stenciled in Paris and known as the town the “birthplace of contemporary stencil artwork.” He was referring to the Could 1968 protests, when college students papered Paris with posters made with display prints, a wide range of stencil artwork.
Banksy isn’t the primary road artist to make use of rats as a motif. Within the Nineteen Eighties, French artist Xavier Prou, who goes by Blek le Rat, used stencils to color rodents round Paris.
“Each time I believe I’ve painted one thing barely authentic, I discover out that Blek le Rat has completed it, too, solely Blek did it 20 years earlier,” Banksy stated in a 2008 interview with Britain’s Each day Mail. That 12 months, Blek stated of Banksy: “Folks say he copies me, however I don’t suppose so. I’m the previous man, he’s the brand new child, and if I’m an inspiration to an artist that good, I like it.”
In an interview with Reuters, Blek expanded on that view. “Does an thought belong to those that use it or those that discover it?” he requested. “I’ve determined to suppose that concepts belong to those that use them, thus to everybody.”
Banksy has acknowledged similarities between his work and Blek’s, however he has cited one other painter as a stronger affect. In a 2012 put up, the FAQ part of Banksy’s web site addressed whether or not he copied Blek. Banksy answered: “No. I copied 3D from Large Assault. He can really draw.”
It was a reference to Del Naja, the artist who painted as 3D, who acknowledged in 2014 that his inspirations included the punk band Crass, and whose early stencil work, although much less refined, resembles later Banksy items.
One other potential clue got here from a longtime Del Naja good friend, music producer Goldie. In a 2017 podcast interview, Goldie referred to Banksy by his first identify: “No disrespect to Rob,” Goldie stated. “I believe he is a superb artist. I believe he has flipped the world of artwork over.” The remark fueled rumors that “Rob” was a reference to Del Naja.
As frontman for Large Assault, Del Naja has used his fame to spotlight political and social injustice, a theme of Banksy’s artwork and philanthropy. Protesting the Iraq Conflict in 2003, Del Naja was photographed holding a placard excessive above his head. On it was Banksy’s picture of a smiling grim reaper.
In an interview with CBS tv first aired in 2023, former supervisor Lazarides toyed with viewers eager to unravel the thriller. “I used to be on my pc and seemed and I went Rob, Robin …,” he stated. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That identify’s on the market and who says it’s true. Robin, Robert, Robbie.”
Lazarides continued: “Mr. Del Naja is a graffiti artist, and I might say arguably approach higher than Banksy.” Then: “Sure. It’s Robert Del Naja. And me, and some different individuals,” he teased, breaking into laughter. Then: “Effectively perhaps I’m being critical and perhaps I’m not.”
Hints like that had been a part of the rationale we scoured “Banksy Captured,” Lazarides’ two-volume account of managing the artist from the late Nineteen Nineties to 2008. The books are crammed with behind-the-scenes pictures. The pictures of Banksy obscure his face, however the photos and textual content are sprinkled with clues – together with an anecdote from 25 years in the past, when Banksy was arrested in New York.
CHAPTER 2
Caught within the act
NEW YORK
In September 2000, gallerist Ivy Brown gave Steve Lazarides and Banksy an earful about her condominium constructing.
On the time, Brown represented Lazarides in his images profession. A billboard had been erected on the roof of 675 Hudson Road in Manhattan, an architecturally distinctive brownstone with a triangular footprint much like that of New York’s well-known Flatiron constructing.
In an interview, she informed Reuters she was “having a meltdown.” September Trend Week was underneath approach in New York, and the billboard was an commercial for Marc Jacobs clothes. The advert confirmed a younger man’s head alongside the phrases, “Boys Love Marc Jacobs.”
“I felt it defaced the constructing,” Brown stated.
She took her visitors to the roof and hoped for assist. “I used to be, like, ‘Have a look at that factor!’ You understand, it’s like, ‘Yo B, love you to do one thing up there.”
Over the following three days, Banksy frolicked at a bar throughout the road. Brown stated she typically observed him gazing on the advert. Promoting billboards had lengthy fascinated Banksy. They’re, he as soon as argued, akin to how some critics view graffiti: a public assertion foisted on individuals with out permission. “Any advert in a public house that offers you no alternative whether or not you see it or not is yours,” he wrote in 2004. “It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use.”
In September 2000, Banksy was shifting from portray freehand to utilizing stencils, a way fitted to repetition and pace. However when he climbed up on Brown’s roof to have on the billboard, he painted freehand.
The half-finished picture resembled a billboard Banksy noticed in Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” In his 2023 “Lower & Run” exhibition in Glasgow, the artist stated the film scene impressed him to get into graffiti. In “Jaws,” somebody doctored a tourism billboard depicting a girl on an inflatable raft within the sea. The vandal added a shark fin and gave the lady bulging eyes and a speech bubble: “HELP!!! SHARK.”
In a portray spree, Lazarides wrote, Banksy “doctored the Marc Jacobs Males billboard in order that the mannequin had goofy tooth” and drew a “big speech bubble” that was surprisingly empty.
That’s as a result of New York police caught Banksy earlier than he might end.
In his e-book, Lazarides talked about the arrest, although not when it occurred or the constructing’s tackle. However by geolocating the constructing within the pictures Lazarides revealed, and by relationship the Marc Jacobs billboard to September 2000, when New York Trend Week was underway, we had been capable of unearth police paperwork and a court docket file from the incident.
The contents of those data have by no means been reported.
They present that at 4:20 a.m. on September 18, 2000, authorities discovered a person defacing a billboard on the roof of 675 Hudson Road. As a result of damages exceeded $1,500, police sought to cost him with a felony. Among the many paperwork is the person’s handwritten confession.
“The night the night time of September seventeenth I had been out consuming at a nightclub with pals after I resolve to make a humorous adjustment to a billboard on prime of the property on Hudson st. Utilizing a key I entered the constructing the place I had been maintaining some paints and utilizing a ladder I painted eyeshadow a brand new mouth and a speach (sic) bubble of the billboard.”
Inside hours of his arrest, paperwork present, the person was assigned a public defender. That afternoon, he was launched after agreeing to quickly flip over his passport.
“He obtained out fairly quick, and he known as me,” Brown recalled. “He was like, ‘Ello luvvie!’ I stated ‘Yo, B! How did you get out so quick?’ And he stated, ‘Feminine decide, nudge-nudge, wink-wink,’” Brown stated.
“I noticed that a part of his artwork was getting out of jail.”
Signed by the artist
The court docket file reveals he would later put up $1,500 bail in alternate for his passport. The felony prices had been decreased to a misdemeanor cost of disorderly conduct. He paid a superb and charges totaling $310, and by early 2001, he accomplished his sentence of 5 days of neighborhood service, the data present. On the bail type, he gave his tackle as 160 E. twenty fifth Road in New York, the placement of one in every of Manhattan’s most eccentric inns. Earlier than his arrest, Banksy had lived for months at a time on the Carlton Arms Resort, which through the years has let artists keep free of charge in return for adorning their rooms. Archived pages of the resort web site point out that in 1997, Banksy painted a mural on the resort. In 1999, the location reveals, he completed a complete room, 5B.
The work seemed nothing just like the Banksys of at present. It was painted freehand, in a rainbow of colours. The characters had been cartoonish. The resort web site attributed the works to “Robin Banks” – a play on “robbing banks,” later shortened to Banksy.
Emma Houghton informed Reuters she dated the artist for 4 years within the Nineteen Nineties, “simply earlier than he was transitioning into Banksy.” In an interview, she wouldn’t reveal his true id or how they met. However she recounted that in written correspondence along with her, the identify he used for himself advanced: from his delivery identify to “Mr. Banks” after which “to Banksy.” In 2024, Houghton auctioned numerous these hand-painted and signed playing cards, which fetched £56,000.
Robert Clarke, a former Carlton Arms worker, struck up a friendship with Banksy and wrote in a memoir about their time collectively on the resort. They bonded as a result of each had been from Bristol, Clarke wrote.
The e-book included a passage that may later strike us as essential: Banksy, Clarke wrote, informed him he was contemplating legally altering his identify to “Robin Banks.” Reuters was unable to find Clarke for remark.
When Banksy was busted in 2000, he wasn’t on the New York Police Division’s radar, stated Steve Mona, the now-retired lieutenant who ran the 75-member vandal squad again then. The police had no thought they’d nabbed “Banksy” as a result of the artist had solely lately begun using the model and pseudonym that may make him well-known.
Given Banksy’s celeb, the identify of the perpetrator now takes on significance. It wasn’t Del Naja who defaced the billboard atop 675 Hudson Road. The person who confessed was Robin Gunningham.
Along with his signature, Gunningham is repeatedly named in court docket and police paperwork associated to the arrest.
The Mail on Sunday had been proper in 2008 in making the case that Gunningham was Banksy. In hindsight, Gunningham’s effort to cover his id started falling aside along with his September 2000 arrest in New York. Information of the bust existed they usually contained his actual identify. The books by former supervisor Lazarides wouldn’t be revealed till 2019. However the pictures and the small print Lazarides included in regards to the arrest enabled us to pinpoint the place Banksy was apprehended and the advert he defaced.
However how did proving past query that Banksy was Robin Gunningham sq. with what we knew in regards to the murals in Ukraine?
Sources informed us there was no file that Gunningham ever entered Ukraine. So who was Del Naja’s portray companion if Gunningham hadn’t been there?
We recalled a element from Banksy’s Carlton Arms days. As Clarke notes in “Seven Years with Banksy,” the artist had as soon as thought-about legally altering his identify.
CHAPTER 3
On the path
LONDON
Within the years after his New York arrest, Banksy grew to become a phenomenon. His work appeared to be all over the place. Nobody appeared to know who he was, and lots of within the artwork world had been dying to search out out.
However in 2004, his anonymity act almost collapsed after a run-in with a Jamaican photographer named Peter Dean Rickards.
Rickards was on task for the file label Wall of Sound. Banksy had signed with the label to provide paintings for album covers. He and Rickards met up in Kingston to work collectively. It didn’t go nicely.
“What we object to,” Rickards wrote on his web site in a now-deleted put up, “are individuals like Banksy who go round spewing pseudo-humanitarian bullshit to clarify their ‘artwork’.” He wrote that Banksy “was just a few wannabe-punk ‘stencilist’ along with his head caught extremely far up his personal redneck ass.”
Rickards didn’t reveal Banksy’s identify. However he posted 21 pictures of Banksy at work in Jamaica, 14 of which present his face from varied angles. In July 2004, one of many pictures was revealed by the Night Commonplace. The headline: “Unmasked ultimately.”
However the Commonplace didn’t have Banksy’s given identify. And there was a minimum of some query whether or not the person within the photograph was Banksy. Supervisor Lazarides issued a agency denial, telling the paper it was “another person.”
Requested about that denial, Lazarides informed Reuters he doesn’t imagine he noticed the photograph earlier than speaking to the Commonplace.
Rickards died in 2014. It’s not clear what prompted his beef with Banksy, however his pictures are unambiguous. We in contrast them to many extra from Lazarides’ books and to footage from interviews that Banksy, utilizing his pseudonym, gave within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. The person in Rickards’ pictures was Banksy.
Picture comparisons present that Banksy typically wore a bracelet and watch, at all times on his left arm. His hair was brown and bristly. He had glasses and an earring in his left ear. Rickards and Lazarides additionally captured of their pictures a particular tattoo on Banksy’s left forearm. In July 2008, The Mail on Sunday ran its Banksy investigation. Citing an nameless supply, the paper recognized the person within the Rickards photograph for the primary time as Gunningham, an artist from Bristol who was born in 1973 and attended the Bristol Cathedral College.
Archived copies of the coed journal, The Cathedralian, comprise quite a few mentions of Gunningham. These embody a comic book strip he created round age 11.
Later, Gunningham earned college awards for his paintings and was lauded within the Cathedralian for his appearing and athleticism. He “confirmed stage presence” in a college play and was recommended for “spectacular saves” as a goalkeeper on the sector hockey crew.
A nimble artist with a theatrical streak: key traits of Banksy, the persona Gunningham would embrace.
Curiously, after the 2008 Mail on Sunday piece, the path went chilly. We discovered no hint of Gunningham in UK public data. He had seemingly gone off the grid.
However we now had a speculation about why there was no file of Gunningham visiting Ukraine. It was bolstered after we reached former supervisor Lazarides late final 12 months. He informed us we had been pursuing a ghost.
“There isn’t any Robin Gunningham,” Lazarides stated when requested in regards to the artist’s id. “The identify you’ve obtained I killed years in the past,” he stated of Robin Gunningham. Looking for him could be “a straight useless finish.”
“Life-wise,” he stated, “you’ll by no means discover him.”
Anonymity began as a solution to dodge the cops, Lazarides stated. Ultimately, maintaining the key grew to become a burden. By the top of their partnership, Lazarides estimates he spent half or extra of his time managing and sustaining the artist’s mystique.
“I believe it grew to become a very good gag, after which, in order for you my trustworthy, trustworthy opinion, I believe it then grew to become a illness,” he stated.
In 2008, Lazarides stated, he and Banksy made a “mutual” choice to half methods. In one in every of his final acts as Banksy’s supervisor, Lazarides stated, he organized a authorized identify change for his shopper. Robin Gunningham grew to become another person, underneath a reputation that would by no means be linked to him.
“I don’t keep in mind whose thought it was, however I do know for a reality it was me that set all of it up,” Lazarides stated. He declined to disclose the brand new identify Gunningham took. “You make a pact and you retain your phrase,” he stated.
A secret no extra
Lazarides did be aware that there was no hidden which means, no pun, nothing particular in any respect in regards to the new id Robin Gunningham took. “It’s simply one other identify,” Lazarides informed us.
That offhand remark was encouraging. It match with one other idea we had regarding the id of the opposite painter with Del Naja in Ukraine.
We had compiled a wealthy public file of all issues Banksy: his previous statements, firms related to him, and excerpts from books or articles about him at varied phases of life.
By looking out that information and cross-referencing it with different public data, we recognized what we believed to be the identify Banksy took. It is without doubt one of the hottest names in Britain, so widespread it helps him cover in plain sight.
Though these paperwork are public, Reuters isn’t figuring out the particular ones used, so as to scale back the probabilities of revealing Banksy’s tackle and sure different personal data. The paperwork embody property data that set up a brand new identify adopted by a relative, and data from a company submitting – dealt with by Banksy’s former accountant – by which the one two shareholders listed had been that relative and the brand new identify assumed by the artist.
We had already positioned Del Naja in Horenka, and witnesses described two males portray the Banksy mural there. Sources confirmed there was no proof that Gunningham had entered Ukraine. However what a couple of man by the identify we believed Banksy had taken?
That identify is David Jones. It’s some of the standard names amongst British males. In 2017, for instance, there have been about 6,000 males named David Jones within the UK, in accordance with information analyzed by GBG, an identity-data intelligence firm. David Jones is also the given identify of David Bowie, whose Ziggy Stardust alter ego impressed a Banksy portrait of Queen Elizabeth.
On October 28, 2022, the day Duley and Del Naja entered Ukraine, a “David Jones” additionally crossed the border on the identical location, in accordance with a supply conversant in immigration procedures. The supply additionally informed us the date of delivery listed on Jones’ passport. It was the identical as Robin Gunningham’s birthday.
In response to the supply, data additionally point out Jones left Ukraine on November 2, 2022, the identical day Del Naja departed.
Banksy, born Robin Gunningham, later took the identify David Jones. (Whether or not he nonetheless makes use of that identify is unclear.) And Robert Del Naja, Gunningham’s graffiti idol, good friend, and a person himself rumored to be Banksy, has on a minimum of one event been his secret portray companion. Banksy wasn’t the Large Assault frontman, whose 2024 local weather motion live performance drew greater than 30,000 followers to Bristol. However he has grow to be a star performer in his personal proper. Living proof is the wild 2018 Sotheby’s public sale in London of his iconic “Woman with Balloon.”
The portray had lately bought for $1.4 million. When it went up for resale that day, the artwork world was shocked to observe the piece get partially shredded by a tool Banksy had secretly constructed into its body. That piece, renamed “Love is within the Bin,” bought three years later for about $25 million.
Artwork supplier Casterline was on the public sale and remembers when the shredder started to beep. He pulled out his telephone to take photos.
“Sadly, there was one individual standing in entrance of me,” blocking the view, he stated. It was an eccentric-looking man with a broad neck scarf and thick eyewear. Oddly, the person wasn’t watching the portray get shredded. He was wanting within the different path, observing the group’s response.
Solely later, reviewing what he shot, did Casterline discover that the person’s glasses appeared to have a small digicam constructed into the bridge. (Banksy later posted a video of the stunt, together with pictures of the astonished viewers.) Having seen Rickards’ 2004 photograph of Robin Gunningham, Casterline is “fairly certain” it was the identical man, thinner and older.
Casterline nonetheless has the pictures. He’s maintaining them personal, save for a tiny crop of the person’s glasses he shared with us. He echoed what many say in Banksy’s protecting circle of pals, companions, collectors and critics.
“I don’t need to be the man who exposes Banksy,” he stated.