Map shows where to see Banksy’s best graffiti in London after new artwork found

Banksy is an anonymous British graffiti artist who brings political street art to walls, bridges, and buildings worldwide.

Since rising to fame in the late 1990s, the artist’s witty, satirical murals and daring pranks have earned him millions of pounds.

Yesterday new piece of street art, believed to be Banksy was spotted on Thursday morning in Clerkenwell Green in Farringdon, London.

The graffiti, showing a girl holding balloons, is sprayed on what appears to be a public toilet. The circles were already there.

Efforts are already underway to protect the art, with a notice telling passers-by not to tamper or remove it. But the style and the balloons suggest Banksy is the person behind it.

So, where else in London can you see his work? Metro has outlined a few for you below.

Brick Lane

Between August 5 and 12, 2024, nine animal-themed Banksy artworks appeared throughout London.

Some were removed, most lawfully, but one, a howling wolf on a satellite dish was stolen. A few, however, remain, including these three swinging monkeys below an Overground line in Brick Lane, east London.

Walthamstow

Also part of the animal series were two pelicans eating fish. Theyappeared on the side of fish and chip shop Bonner’s Fish Bar in Northcote Road, Walthamstow.

The artwork has been covered with clear Perspex to protect it and can still be seen.

Chelsea

These two elephant silhouettes with their trunks stretched out towards each other in Edith Grove, Chelsea were also part of the animal series.

One of the elephants was defaced with white stripes, but the local council removed the stripes and covered the work with a special paint to protect it.

Stoke Newington

Banksy’s Royal family on a balcony was painted on the side of a building in Stoke Newington in the early 2000s.

The image was one of a series used for Blur’s Think Tank album in 2003.

Hackney Council started painting the wall black in 2009 and were about to cover it until locals pointed out it was a Banksy. They stopped, but the black paint remains around the artwork.

Finsbury Park

The Finsbury Park tree mural in Hornsey Road caught attention when it was put up shortly after St Patrick’s Day in 2024.

The art work has been covered in clear plastic to protect it.

Mayfair

A Banksy mural of a woman falling from a building holding onto a shopping trolley turned up in 2011 in Bruton Street, Mayfair.

The work is known as both Falling Shopper and Shop Till You Drop.

Shoreditch

There are two Banksy pieces on the side of defunct nightclub Cargo, which is now a multi bar and restaurant called Viaduct in Shoreditch.

One of the works, named The Guard Dog, depicts a security guard with a poodle on a lead and the other, called His Master’s Voice, shows a white dog pointing a bazooka at a gramophone.

They can be found in the outdoor seating area of The Arch, one of the Viaduct’s restaurants.

Poplar

Banksy’s piece My Taps Been Phoned’ popped up in Poplar in August 2011.

It appears to be a reference the phone hacking scandal that had recently broken in the UK.

Where can you see Banksy’s art in the rest of the UK?

Banksy’s hometown of Bristol is packed with murals by the secretive artist.

One of his most famous works, the Grim Reaper, was originally painted on the side of the Thekla, a nightclub inside a boat docked in Bristol harbour.

However, in 2014 the piece was removed to protect it from damage. It’s now on display in Bristol’s M Shed museum.

You can also find the artwork Well Hung Lover on the side of a sexual health clinic on Frogmore Street, and The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum, a parody of the Johannes Vermeer painting, is on Hanover Place.

His art has also popped up elsewhere in the UK, including Hull, Nottingham, and Cheltenham.

Why has so much of Banksy’s art been destroyed?

The rocketing price of Banksy’s work means that many of his pieces vanish without warning as building owners try to make a profit.

An entire section of a shop wall in Lowestoft that displayed an original Banksy was removed in 2021 and taken to a secret location.

In December 2023, a Banksy artwork in Peckham of three drones on a traffic stop sign was stolen less than an hour after it was put up.

A man with bolt cutters tore the piece down and another man on a Lime rental bike rode away with it.

One gallery owner told the BBC that the sign could be worth up to £500,000.

In other instances, though, Banksy’s work has been accidentally destroyed.

Also in 2023 builders unknowingly demolished a Banksy mural on the side of a derelict farmhouse in Kent.

‘It made me feel sick realising it was a Banksy – we were gutted. We started demolishing it yesterday,’ one of the contractors involved said.

‘The landowner watched us do it and didn’t know either.’

Why did Banksy destroy his own art?

In 2018, a Banksy painting called Girl With Balloon was sold for more than £1 million at auction house Sotheby’s – and was shredded just moments later.

The auctioneers were unaware that Banksy had installed a shredding mechanism into the painting’s frame.

Following the incident Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s senior director, said: ‘It appears we just got Banksy-ed.’

The original buyer still purchased the artwork at the full original price, but the painting was renamed from Girl With Balloon to Love is in the Bin.

Then, in 2021, the painting was sold again – this time setting the record for the most expensive painting to be sold at auction at £18.6 million.

How much is Banksy’s art worth?

Banksy doesn’t sell his own artwork. However, pieces of his work owned by other people have fetched tens of millions at auction.

He gave the artwork Game Changer to Southampton Hospital in 2020 as a thank you to NHS workers. The painting was later sold for £16.8 million, with the money going towards NHS causes.

A 2005 painting called Sunflowers From Petrol Station, which parodied Van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings, fetched £10.7 million in 2021 when it was sold by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith.

Who is Banksy?

The mystery surrounding Banksy has, understandably, made people eager to find out his true identity.

Though nothing’s ever been verified, there have been a few rumours, clues, and hints as to who they actually are.

Of course, it’s thought that Banksy wants to keep their identity a secret, given that graffiti is a crime – but myths about their real name are common, often linking back to the beginning of their career, as well as those who have publicly ‘named’ them.

Banksy began their artistic journey as one of Bristol’s DryBreadZ Crew. They were influenced by others on the Bristol Underground Scene – including 3D, better known as Robert Del Naja, one of the members of the band Massive Attack.

Rumours that Banksy is Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja have persisted. The performer identified himself as a personal friend of Banksy, and in June 2017, rapper Goldie referred to Banksy as ‘Rob’ when conversing about art in a podcast interview with Scroobius Pip.

Interestingly, the timing of Banksy’s past works across the world is in tandem with the touring schedule of Massive Attack.

However, Goldie may have been referring to Robin Gunningham, who was said to be Banksy by some former schoolmates from Bristol and associates in a 2008 Mail on Sunday investigation.

The suggestion that Robin Gunningham was Banksy was supported by the study of locations of Banksy’s art, which correlated with the known movements of Gunningham.

In an interview with a Bristol community magazine, Boundless, Banksy was asked about the Robert De Naja rumours. When asked if he would confirm the claim that he was indeed Robert, he said simply: ‘No, because I’m not.’

Speculation that Banksy is a group or collective of graffiti artists is fairly common, too, and in 2014 an internet hoax circulated that Banksy had been arrested.

This is an updated version of an article originally published in August 2023.

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