Investigation May Have Unmasked Banksy

A sprawling Reuters investigation claims to have settled the mystery of Banksy's real identity. Reporters Simon Gardner, James Pearson, and Blake Morrison say they've unmasked the famed street artist as Robin Gunningham of Bristol, England. The name has been floated before, but the Reuters team says it found evidence: long-buried NYPD and court records from 2000, when a young Banksy got caught altering a Marc Jacobs billboard in New York City. The handwritten confession, they report, bears one name: Robin Gunningham.

From there, the story follows how that name appears to vanish from public records after 2008, only to re-emerge in another form. Reuters reports that Gunningham legally changed his name to "David Jones," an extremely common British name that shows up on Ukrainian border logs the same day Massive Attack frontman and longtime stencil artist Robert Del Naja entered the country—just before Banksy's Ukrainian murals appeared. Del Naja turns out to be a Banksy collaborator. Along the way, the piece explores how Banksy's anonymity became a brand, how it has helped fuel a multimillion-dollar market, and how Banksy's lawyer argues outing him endangers both the artist and free expression. Read the full story.