A major Reuters investigation claims to have identified the elusive street artist Banksy as Robin Gunningham, a 52-year-old Bristol-born man who now goes by the name David Jones. The report supports earlier allegations made by the Mail on Sunday nearly two decades ago, and suggests that Gunningham’s secret partner is Robert Del Naja, co-founder of the band Massive Attack.
The key piece of evidence comes from a 2000 NYPD report, uncovered by Reuters, showing that a man matching Banksy’s description was arrested in New York for defacing a Marc Jacobs poster. The suspect signed the name “Robin Gunningham” and paid a $310 fine for disorderly conduct. After the 2008 unmasking, all public records of Gunningham vanished, but in 2022, immigration data showed that a “David Jones” with a matching birthdate traveled to Ukraine with Robert Del Naja at the same time new Banksy artworks appeared there.
Banksy’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, told Reuters that the artist “does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct,” but stopped short of a denial. The investigation aligns with previous accounts from Banksy’s former manager, Steve Lazarides, and a resurfaced BBC interview where the artist referred to himself as “Robbie.”
While the evidence is compelling, some question whether the mystery should remain unsolved. The report paints a picture of an ordinary middle-aged man from Bristol, possibly with a family, using a deliberately common alias to evade detection. As one commentator noted, “the greatest trick Banksy ever pulled was disguising a middle-aged bloke from Bristol as a global urban guerrilla.”
