He’s the elusive street artist whose mysterious murals attract crowds of onlookers and tempt celebrity buyers – but Banksy has never confirmed his true identity.
Yet locals admiring his latest work in London believe the prime suspect might have let his mask slip by turning up at the scene and being captured on camera.
A man said to bear a striking resemblance to former public schoolboy Robin Gunningham was spotted beside the recently-revealed tree-themed painting in Finsbury Park, north London, on Saturday morning.
Reports have long suggested he is responsible for Banksy street murals with names such as Balloon Girl, Love Is In The Bin, Slave Labour and Kissing Coppers.
The photos were taken beside the latest mural, which appeared on a wall in Hornsey Road on March 17 before being vandalised with streaks of white paint shortly afterwards.
A local Banksy fan who took the pictures said: ‘I have been going to the mural for a whole week.
‘On Saturday there was more security fences and CCTV up and a few people putting up Perspex over the artwork.
‘I went back at 10am to go have another look at what they were doing and saw this man who looks exactly like the photo I saw 20 years ago of Banksy.
‘I found it weird he was putting up his own Perspex.
‘The people putting it up weren’t wearing council uniforms or anything. One was wearing a Nirvana T-shirt – he must have been there for hours.’
The new mural depicts an abstract appearance of foliage next to a stencil of a person holding a pressure hose.
It was later confirmed by Banksy on his Instagram to be genuine.
The name Robin Gunningham was first revealed by a Mail On Sunday investigation in 2008 which reported that he is a former public schoolboy from Bristol.
The newspaper published a photograph taken in Jamaica in 2004 showing a man with a bag of spray cans by his feet – which was identified as Mr Gunningham.
Banksy is also believed to have gone by the name Robin Banks, and in 2017 the DJ Goldie referred to him in an interview on the Distraction Pieces podcast as ‘Rob’.
One of Banksy’s most striking moments was in 2003 when he disguised himself as a pensioner and installed a piece in a vacant spot in the Tate Britain in London.
His artwork Girl With Balloon self-destructed in a Sotheby’s London saleroom when descending into a shredder in 2018.
That piece was then renamed Love Is In The Bin, which in 2021 sold for £18.6million – an all-time high for a Banksy artwork.
It was reported last October that Banksy was named as the first defendant in a High Court legal action accusing him of defamation.
His co-defendant is the company Banksy established named Pest Control Ltd, which sells his art.
MailOnline also revealed how a former Labour Parliamentary lobbyist Joy Millward, originally from the West Midlands, is said to be married to Banksy.
She worked as a researcher for Labour MP Austin Mitchell, who died in 2021, and later set up Principle Affairs, a lobby group for charities.
Ms Millward is thought to have met Mr Gunningham in 2003 before they married in Las Vegas in 2006.
The Mail On Sunday investigation identified Banksy as Mr Gunningham, Bristol-born son of former contracts manager Peter Gunningham and his wife, company director’s secretary Pamela.
Meanwhile, Banksy’s voice was recently heard for the first time in 20 years when an audio clip was unearthed of him refusing to apologise for his graffiti.
The recording dates back to 2003 when ex-BBC arts correspondent Nigel Wrench interviewed Banksy to mark the opening of his Turf War exhibition in east London.
Only some of the material was broadcast that July on the Radio 4’s PM programme, but Mr Wrench was recently listening to The Banksy Story podcast which came out last July – leading him to find the full interview on a minidisc at his home.
The BBC released last November a bonus podcast episode featuring the discussion.
In the interview Banksy can be heard defending how he does his work undercover at speed, saying: ‘I’m not here to apologise for it – it’s a quicker way of making your point, right?’
According to the podcast, the interview was recorded in the run-up to the artist’s 30th birthday, as he was installing his debut exhibition, Turf War, in a warehouse in Hackney, East London.
The show featured a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II as a chimpanzee, one of Winston Churchill with a grass Mohican and two live pigs painted in the blue and white check worn by the Metropolitan Police.
In the interview, Banksy said his work was a ‘celebration of vandalism’, adding: ‘It’s about justice.
‘If you’ve ever fallen foul of the justice system, then it turns you very sceptical about everything, so I guess I like to turn it on its head a little bit. I’m into working out who really are the good guys.’
He has sold works to singer Christina Aguilera, who owns a pornographic picture of Queen Victoria with a prostitute.
Another buyer was actress Angelina Jolie who has a twist on a Manet painting in which a white family lunch under an umbrella watched by 15 starving Africans.
He also created the artwork for Blur’s 2003 album Think Tank.
Crowds of people have continued to visit the site of the new mural in Hornsey Road.
Estate agent Alex Georgiou, owner of the building where it appeared, previously looked to allay neighbours’ fears by claiming he wouldn’t be charging more off the back of the area’s sudden fame.
However, he welcomed interest from potential buyers, as he told MailOnline: ‘You know what, if somebody offered me millions and they can have the building and take the flats with it. Feel free.’
The owner of one building in Shoreditch, east London, painted over one of Banksy’s etchings after they became irritated by a security light constantly being activated by Banksy fans turning up to view it.
And homeowners Garry and Gokean Coutts spent £200,000 removing a mural of a seagull from their house in Lowestoft, Suffolk, when they were forced to hire security after it became a target for vandals and thieves.
Another Banksy artwork that appeared in Peckham, south London – a traffic stop sign covered with three military drones – was stolen less than an hour later last December.
MailOnline has approached Banksy’s representatives Pest Control Office for comment.
