Banksy unmasked as middle-class Bristol suburbanite
Last Updated: Sunday, July 13, 2008 | 11:42 AM ET
CBC News
A British newspaper claims to have unmasked guerrilla artist Banksy, confirming his identity through a photo taken in 2004 in Jamaica.
The Mail on Sunday says the person in the photograph — a smiling man in sunglasses squatting with a spray can at his feet and a few stencils — is 34-year-old Robin Gunningham, who hails from a middle-class family.
Graffiti artwork by British artist Banksy in Bethlehem in December.
(Musa Al-Shaer/AFP/Getty)
The anonymous British graffiti artist, known for subversive works that pop up anywhere, has kept his identity a secret on purpose.
Banksy's agent, Steve Lazardies, has said the photo does not depict his client.
There is only one fact known about Banksy — he was born and raised in the town of Bristol in southern England.
The Mail, which says it spent a year on an "exhaustive search" for Banksy's true identity, says former friends and acquaintances have identified the man in the picture.
A former school pal, Scott Nurse, says Gunningham was "extremely talented at art."
Luke Egan, who once exhibited with Banksy, would only say he once shared an apartment with Gunningham.
His parents have been identified as Peter Gordon Gunningham, 66, a retired manager, and Pamela Ann Dawkin-Jones, 67, who now works in a nursing home. Dawkin-Jones actually denies she has a son.
The couple married on April 25, 1970, in Bristol. Two years later, their daughter Sarah was born, and on July 28, 1973, Robin came into the world. The family lived in a comfortable suburban area of the city.
Left school at 16
The photo, taken by Jamaican photographer Peter Dean Rickards, was published in the Mail's sister publication the Evening Standard in 2004.
A former neighbour, Anthony Hallett, recalls Robin as a young man enthralled with graffiti art, an obsession that his family disapproved of. 
Another Banksy piece, part of a collection sold at a Sotheby's auction in 2007.
(Daniel Berehulak/Getty)
"He worked for other people and would disappear for months on end. He was quite nomadic," Hallett told the paper.
"There was some sort of rift in the family, probably because he didn't turn out quite as they hoped. He just disappeared after he left home."
Robin Gunningham left school at age 16 and Hallett says his parents separated in 1998.
While Banksy is known for his whimsical pieces on walls, some of his more audacious works include putting a life-size blowup doll of a Guantanamo Bay detainee at Disneyland in 2006 and holding an art installation in Los Angeles using a live, painted elephant.
"I have no interest in ever coming out," he once told Swindle magazine. "I'm just trying to make the pictures look good; I'm not into trying to make myself look good."
The artist has said that if people found out who he really was, it would be a "crushing disappointment."
