A major investigation by Reuters claims to have uncovered the true identity of elusive street artist Banksy, identifying him as Robin Gunningham, a 52-year-old Bristol-born man now going by the name David Jones. The report, spanning 8,000 words and stretching from Ukraine to New York and London, backs up earlier claims made by the Mail on Sunday in 2008.
The key piece of evidence is a New York police report from 2000, in which a man signed the name Robin Gunningham after being caught defacing a Marc Jacobs poster. The report, uncovered 24 years later, shows he was fined $310 for disorderly conduct. Reuters then found that after the 2008 unmasking, all traces of Gunningham vanished—no tax records, employment records, or property filings.
In 2022, Banksy artworks appeared on bombed buildings in Ukraine. Reuters checked border records and found that Robert Del Naja, co-founder of Massive Attack, had entered Ukraine around the same time, accompanied by a man named David Jones. Jones's birthdate matched that of Gunningham on the 2000 arrest file. The name David Jones is so common in the UK that it effectively serves as camouflage.
The findings align with previous accounts from Banksy's former manager, Steve Lazarides, who wrote in his 2019 and 2020 books that Banksy was indeed the artist caught in New York. Banksy's lawyer, Mark Stephens, told Reuters that the artist does not accept many details in the enquiry, but stopped short of a denial.
An old BBC interview from 2003 also resurfaced, where the interviewer asked Banksy if his real name was Robert Banks, to which he replied, 'It's Robbie.' While this doesn't rule out Del Naja, the artistic styles differ: Del Naja's album covers are described as 'creepy,' while Banksy's work is politically acerbic but grounded in wit and whimsy.
