{"id":527387,"date":"2026-03-16T19:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527387\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T19:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:32:08","slug":"banksy-pictured-in-only-known-photos-of-elusive-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527387\/","title":{"rendered":"Banksy pictured in only known photos of elusive artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

These are the only known pictures of Banksy \u2014 the elusive artist who was recently unmasked as Robin Gunningham<\/a>, 52, from Bristol in the UK. <\/p>\n

The most recent image \u2014 taken nearly 20 years ago \u2014 emerged after he had a falling out with a photographer, who derided him as a \u201cstencilist\u201d who had his head up his own \u201credneck ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunningham later changed his name to David Jones in 2008 to help hide him in plain sight, according to a detailed Reuters investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elusive guerrilla artist Banksy\u2019s identity has remained a mystery for decades. REUTERS<\/p>\n

This picture, taken in Jamaica in 2004, is one of the only known photographs of Robin Gunningham, A.K.A. Banksy.<\/p>\n

One of the pictures shows him wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt over a white T-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses, crouching down and smiling, with a spray can at his feet.<\/p>\n

The photograph was taken in 2004 while Banksy was on a trip to Jamaica to meet up with local photographer, Peter Dean Rickards.<\/p>\n

Rickards had been on assignment for the record label Wall of Sound, who had signed Banksy up to produce artwork for album covers.<\/p>\n

But the pair reportedly had a falling-out when they met in the Jamaican capital, Kingston.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we object to are people like Banksy who go around spewing pseudo-humanitarian bulls\u2013t to explain their \u2018art,’\u201d Rickards wrote in a since-deleted post on his website.<\/p>\n

Rickards, who died in 2014, branded Banksy \u201cjust some wannabe-punk \u2018stencilist\u2019 with his head stuck incredibly far up his own redneck ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another photograph shows Gunningham as a private school student in England.<\/p>\n

He did not reveal Banksy\u2019s name in the post, but did share 21 photos of the artist at work in Jamaica.<\/p>\n

One of those photos was published by London\u2019s Evening Standard newspaper in July 2004 under the headline, \u201cUnmasked at last.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Banksy\u2019s then-manager Steve Lazarides denied that the picture showed the artist, insisting it was \u201csomeone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Del Naja (l), of the British group Massive Attack, was previously rumored to be Banksy. Getty Images<\/p>\n

However, the picture, compared with footage of Banksy from interviews taken in the late 1990s, shows a matching bracelet and watch on his left arm, matching brown and bristly hair, glasses, an earring in his left ear, and a distinctive tattoo on his left forearm, the Reuters investigation found.<\/p>\n

The only other known picture of Gunningham\/Jones, showing him as a bespectacled schoolboy at Bristol Cathedral School, a private school in southwest England, was\u00a0published by the Mail on Sunday<\/a>\u00a0in July 2008.<\/p>\n

That same year is when he purportedly changed his name to David Jones, one of the most common male names in the UK.<\/p>\n

Other, more recent pictures, appearing to show an older Jones at the site of a Banksy artwork, have not been confirmed as showing the enigmatic street artist.<\/p>\n

The investigation also put to bed rumors that\u00a0Banksy was really Robert Del Naja<\/a>, singer of the cult British trip-hop group, Massive Attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These are the only known pictures of Banksy \u2014 the elusive artist who was recently unmasked as Robin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,28942,229,88,45451,108303,237310,1049,965],"class_list":["post-527387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-banksy","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-graffiti","tag-street-art","tag-street-artists","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}