In Search of Banksy

It’s one of the art world’s longest-running mysteries: the true identity of Banksy, the most famous street artist. In a sweeping report, a team at Reuters say they’ve solved it—following the artist’s trail, interviewing experts, scouring previously undisclosed court records and police reports, and connecting the dots. The writers identify Banksy as Robin Gunningham—a Bristol man who had been unmasked as the artist in 2008—and who later changed his name to David Jones. While these names may be satisfying revelations for some readers, it’s really the globe-spanning investigation itself that makes for a riveting read.

Lazarides did note that there was no hidden meaning, no pun, nothing special at all about the new identity Robin Gunningham took. “It’s just another name,” Lazarides told us.

That offhand comment was encouraging. It fit with another theory we had concerning the identity of the other painter with Del Naja in Ukraine.

We had compiled a rich public record of all things Banksy: his past statements, companies connected to him, and excerpts from books or articles about him at various stages of life.

By searching that data and cross-referencing it with other public records, we identified what we believed to be the name Banksy took. It is one of the most popular names in Britain, so common it helps him hide in plain sight.