After three decades of guessing the identity of the guy leaving all those not-so-subtle, politically charged pieces of art in cities around the world, a Reuters investigation claims to have finally figured out who Banksy is.
Banksy is, allegedly, a guy named Robin Gunningham, born in Bristol in 1973.
The evidence Reuters dug up, which it felt was strong enough to publish, centers on a police report and court filing from 2000, when a man matching Gunningham’s description was arrested for defacing a billboard in New York. The report says that Gunningham confessed to the crime and listed his residence as the Carlton Arms Hotel, a haven for artists in residency.
Banksy Identified as British Artist Robin Gunningham
The investigation found public records that indicate Gunningham legally changed his name to David Jones. Reuters confirmed that a man with Jones’s identification was traveling in Ukraine in late 2022, which just so happens to coincide with the appearance of a series of Banksy murals in Ukraine.
While the Reuters investigation provides solid evidence that Gunningham/Jones has been Banksy all along, this isn’t the first time that Gunningham/Jones has been linked to Banksy. A 2008 investigation by The Mail on Sunday identified him, citing former neighbors and photographs as evidence. His father denied the claim.
Banksy has long flourished in anonymity, stenciling their work on walls around the world and selling individual pieces at auction for millions of dollars. Revealing Banksy’s identity probably won’t change much. While his works are selling for nearly as much as they used to, that’s more a part of a larger trend in the art world than it is about any waning interest in the artist, which, according to experts interviewed by the New York Times, probably won’t be impacted by Banksy’s alleged unmasking.
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