Never-before-seen Banksy photos show him as jet-setting public schoolboy
New pictures have emerged of the man rumoured to be Banksy enjoying life as a teenager.
Privately-educated Robin Gunningham is seen on school trips abroad in the 1980s.
Two photos show him on a ski trip: one shows him tumbling backwards mid-air as he catches a jump, while another shows him reclining on the slopes with four classmates.
The boys reportedly stayed at the 19th-century Hotel Sommelier in Bardonecchia, an Italian resort known as the ‘Pearl of the Alps’.
A third photo shows him and 11 other boys in front of the Berlin Wall, on the West German side of the imposing barrier which stopped people from fleeing communist East Germany.
Gunningham is thought to have joined the prestigious 900-year-old Cathedral Choir School in Bristol in 1984, which was then a fee-paying selective school charging the equivalent of £2,800 per term in today’s money.
The exact date of the photos is unknown, but they would have been taken no later than 1989.
Since girls were only accepted in sixth form at the time and none are seen in the photos, it’s likely Gunningham was aged between 11 and 15 in the pictures.
Not long after leaving school, Banksy became a graffiti artist painting in ‘freehand’ technique around the streets of Bristol.
At the turn of the millenium he turned to the stencilling technique which forms the basis of his now-iconic style, and his work grew rapidly in popularity.
His dedication to maintaining ‘official’ anonymity has fuelled decades of speculation over his identity.
Early rumours suggested he could be Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja or Gorillaz founder Jamie Hewlett.
![The teenage Banksy - whose real identity is former public schoolboy Robin Gunningham - is shown clowning around with classmates during a ski trip ? and in another photo believed to be him, visiting the Berlin Wall before it came down. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the guerrilla stenciller, whose works have sold for millions, was spotted as a gifted artist even back then, when he attended the prestigious Cathedral School in Bristol having started at the then ?700-a-term school in 1984. His creative talents found an outlet not only in art classes, but also on the stage, where, according to school magazine The Cathedralian, he played an ?Ant Commander? in his first year in a performance of The Insect Play, and was feted as ?commanding and having a stage presence?. The same year he was a regular in the Under 12 rugby team. It?s tempting to wonder whether, had he chosen an acting career, Gunningham the actor?s name might be almost as well-known as Banksy the artist?s. At the end of his first year he appeared in 'Sitting on top of the world', described as a ?wry, witty comedy?. Gunningham bagged one of the two lead roles, playing Bill, a builder, dangling atop a half-completed tower block. The Cathedralian picked him out for praise, reporting: ?Special mention must go to Robin Gunningham for [his] professional and clear performance.? And he was one of two boys to receive a Junior Acting Award that year, along with an English school prize at 'speech day' held in the 12th- Century cathedral. The acting continued into his second year at the school when he appeared on stage again as one of the deaf gentlemen in ?Post early for Christmas?, a one-act comedy set in a busy Post Office and performed during a lunch break in December 1985. He followed that up in May 1986 by playing 'Blue Eyes' in a production of the musical Tin Pan Ali.](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SEI_202468390-fb76.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=835)
A slew of reports since 2008 have named him as Robin Gunningham, born in 1974 in Yate, near Bristol.
He’s said to have adopted his current name by first giving himself the witty nickname ‘Robin Banks’ before dropping his first name from the sobriquet.
In a 2003 interview he confirmed he was going by the first name ‘Robbie’.
Thirteen years later, Researchers at Queen Mary University of London used criminal investigation techniques to trace Gunningham’s known movements over the years and linked them to the locations of 140 known Banksy artworks.
Last year Gunningham was named in court papers as a co-defendant alongside Pest Control Ltd, a company describing itself as Banksy’s official representative and ‘sole point of contact’.
The company’s website humorously invites people to email in suggestions of ‘who Banksy really is’ as he is ‘currently struggling with that very question’.
It was registered as a business in 2008 by a Simon Durban, who appointed as company secretary a Holly Jane Cushing.
Cushing was credited as Executive Producer of a 2010 documentary directed and narrated by Banksy.
None of the links are concrete but neither Gunningham nor anyone associated with Banksy have ever denied that the two men are one and the same.
Now the most famous street artist in the UK, he is credited with being the first to turn graffiti into so-called ‘fine art’, displayed at major exhibitions and purchased by wealthy collectors.
He has popped up with new pieces stealthily created in public places around the world ever since, including the barriers of the West Bank occupied Palestinian territory.
Many of his murals have been interpreted as calls for peace and jibes aimed at authority and inequality.
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