What to make of Banksy? Artist or vandal? Tate Modern holds no Banksys and, other than a redundant phone box that he folded in half and pretended to have reconfigured with a pickaxe, Banksy has never destroyed anything. So I ask my 15-year-old son what he knows of him: ‘He’s the guy who did the policeman with the Tesco bag, who does really cool graffiti, not lame stuff, and no one knows who he is.’
Actually, we do know who he is. His identity was discovered some years ago by the Daily Mail, an organ neither beloved nor believed by those who follow Banksy. But because the public loves a mystery I shall follow Will Ellsworth-Jones in his coy refusal to give the name away in this competent, broadly sympathetic and enjoyable book.
Banksy was born in Bristol in 1973 and educated at the Bristol Cathedral Choir School. His wit, apostrophe-placement and spelling (apart, that is, from the word ‘graffiti’, which he misspelled on a wall in the Portobello Road) suggest that he was an interested student.
He began drawing pictures on walls in his late teens, using stencils.
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