58 Fun Facts About Banksy

Banksy's 2004 mural on the wall of a Brighton pub shows two of which uniformed figures kissing?

Policemen. Kissing Coppers was sprayed on the side of the Prince Albert pub in Brighton; the original was later removed from the wall and sold to an anonymous buyer in Miami for $575,000.

Banksy says he took up stencilling after noticing a stencilled plate while hiding from police where?

Under a dumper truck. He wrote that at 18 he hid there for over an hour, engine oil leaking on him, after transport police caught his crew painting a train, and realised he had to cut his painting time in half.

Banksy's Bristol mural The Mild Mild West shows a teddy bear doing what?

Throwing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police with shields. When a group splattered the mural with red paint in 2009, locals turned out to clean it up.

Banksy toured which country in 2001 as goalkeeper of Bristol's Easton Cowboys, painting murals in rebel villages?

Mexico. The amateur club went to Chiapas to play teams from Zapatista villages, and a painting Banksy gave the club was raffled to raise money for water projects there.

Banksy's first Los Angeles show in 2002 was called what?

Existencilism opened at the 33 1/3 Gallery in Los Angeles in July 2002, the year Banksy gave the same title to his second self-published book.

At the 2003 London warehouse show Turf War, Banksy painted on what?

Live animals: pigs in police colours, sheep in concentration-camp stripes and a cow covered in Andy Warhol's face. One protester chained herself to the railings, though an RSPCA inspector had approved the conditions.

Which Edward Hopper painting did Banksy subvert by adding a hooligan in Union Jack underwear?

Nighthawks. In Banksy's 2005 version an angry man in Union Jack boxer shorts stands outside Hopper's late-night diner, having just smashed its window with a chair.

Banksy's 2004 spoof £10 notes replaced the Queen with whose head?

Princess Diana's. The 'Di-faced tenners' were issued by the 'Banksy of England', and in 2019 the British Museum added one to its money collection, the first Banksy work it had acquired.

Banksy's print Napalm places the girl from a famous Vietnam War photograph between which two characters?

Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse each take hold of the crying girl and beam cheerfully, seemingly unconcerned by her distress; the print is also known as Can't Beat That Feeling.

In 2005 Banksy painted nine images on which structure?

Israel's West Bank barrier. Banksy condemned the wall but called it 'the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers'.

The centrepiece of Banksy's 2006 Los Angeles show Barely Legal was which animal?

An elephant. Painted to match the wallpaper of a mock living room, Tai was Banksy's 'elephant in the room', standing for world poverty and the other big problems that people choose to ignore.

Which pop star paid £25,000 in 2006 for three Banksy works, including his Queen Victoria as a lesbian?

Christina Aguilera. She bought one original and two prints at a private viewing in a Soho gallery, and a friend said the Queen Victoria picture was going on her living-room wall.

After record Sotheby's sales in 2007, Banksy posted a painting of an auction whose text called his buyers what?

Morons. The picture being bid on in the scene reads 'I can't believe you morons actually buy this', followed by a ruder word, and Banksy went on to release the image as a print edition.

Banksy's London mural of two Pulp Fiction characters, painted over in 2007, had them clutching what instead of guns?

Bananas. Transport for London painted over the popular mural near Old Street station, explaining that its graffiti removal teams were 'professional cleaners not professional art critics'.

Banksy designed the Union Jack stab-proof vest that which rapper wore on stage at Glastonbury in 2019?

Stormzy. He wore the vest for his headline set, and that autumn it featured in the pop-up shop Banksy set up in Croydon, the rapper's home town.

Banksy's early online 'manifesto' was a British officer's diary about lipstick arriving at which newly liberated Nazi camp?

Bergen-Belsen. Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Gonin, among the first British soldiers to arrive in 1945, wrote that nothing did more for the internees: the lipstick made them individuals again.

Banksy's first official New York exhibition in 2008 took the form of what?

A pet store with animatronic animals: in The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, chicken nuggets dipped themselves in sauce and fish sticks swam in a tank. Banksy said it questioned our relationship with animals and factory farming.

Banksy's 2008 Cans Festival took place in which London location?

A road tunnel under Waterloo station: Leake Street. Banksy said he hoped the murals would become a permanent part of the tunnel, and it went on to become an authorised graffiti area.

Which French pioneer of the life-sized stencil has Banksy long been accused of copying?

Blek le Rat began stencilling rats on the walls of Paris in 1981; he has called the rat the only free animal in the city, and likes that 'rat' is an anagram of 'art'.

Banksy set up the office called Pest Control mainly to do what?

Authenticate his artworks. Banksy set up the tongue-in-cheek-named office himself, and a piece it will not certify is not recognised as a real Banksy, however convincing it looks.

In 2020 Banksy funded a pink-painted boat for what purpose?

Rescuing refugees at sea. Named after the French anarchist Louise Michel, the boat had already taken 89 people on board in the Mediterranean when Banksy's backing was made public.

At which film festival did Banksy's documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop premiere in 2010?

The Sundance Film Festival. Banksy heralded the premiere by stencilling walls around Park City, the Utah town where the festival is held.

Which exposé of corporate wrongdoing beat Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop to the Oscar in 2011?

Inside Job. In the run-up to the ceremony, new Banksy street art appeared around Los Angeles, just as Academy voters were filling in their ballots.

In 2010 Banksy storyboarded an opening sequence set in a grim Asian sweatshop for which animated series?

The Simpsons. His opening for the episode 'MoneyBart' showed workers churning out the show's artwork and merchandise, and ended on the Fox logo ringed by barbed wire, searchlights and a watchtower.

Banksy's 2011 poster of the Bristol riots showed a petrol bomb in a bottle branded by which supermarket?

Tesco. The riots began after police raided a squat over fears that a newly opened Tesco would be petrol-bombed, and Banksy sold his 'Tesco Value' poster to raise money for local groups.

Banksy's bust Cardinal Sin, unveiled in Liverpool in 2011, replaces a priest's face with what?

A pixelated effect: Banksy sawed the face off a replica 18th-century bust and stuck on blank bathroom tiles, his response to the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

Banksy's Slave Labour, a child sewing Union Jack bunting, was cut from the wall of which chain's London shop in 2013?

Poundland. The Wood Green mural turned up in a Miami auction catalogue; after an outcry it was withdrawn from that sale, only to be sold at a private auction in London months later.

Banksy's month-long 2013 New York 'show on the streets' was titled what?

Better Out Than In. Banksy promised a new piece of street art in New York on every day of October 2013, and some were tagged over by local graffiti writers almost as soon as they appeared.

How much did Banksy charge per canvas at his anonymous 2013 stall on Fifth Avenue near Central Park?

$60. The stall took just $420 all day, its first sale coming mid-afternoon to a woman who haggled a 50% discount, for signed canvases estimated to be worth up to £20,000 each.

Banksy's 2015 'bemusement park' Dismaland was built in which English seaside town?

Weston-super-Mare. Banksy built it in the derelict Tropicana lido, and when it closed after five weeks he sent the timber and fixtures to Calais to build shelters in the 'Jungle' refugee camp.

Banksy's Calais 'Jungle' mural The Son of a Migrant from Syria depicts which tech founder?

Steve Jobs, whose biological father was a migrant from Syria, is shown carrying an early Apple computer and a bin bag of belongings. Banksy said Apple 'only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs'.

Banksy opened his Walled Off Hotel in 2017 in which city?

Bethlehem. Banksy advertised his own hotel as having 'the worst view of any hotel in the world'.

What new title did Banksy's half-shredded Girl with Balloon receive?

Love Is in the Bin. Sotheby's said that in 'destroying' the picture Banksy had created a new one, the first artwork in history to be made live during an auction.

Banksy explained shredding Girl with Balloon with 'The urge to destroy is also a creative urge', crediting which artist?

Picasso was the name Banksy put under the line on Instagram, though it is usually attributed to the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.

Banksy's 2018 Port Talbot mural Season's Greetings shows a child catching snowflakes that are really what?

Ash from a bin fire. The mural wraps round the corner of a garage near the town's steelworks and is believed to be a protest at its pollution; a local man had messaged Banksy about the dust.

Why did Banksy open the Croydon pop-up shop Gross Domestic Product in 2019?

To protect his trademark. A greetings card company was contesting it, and Banksy was advised that selling his own merchandise would help; he said he was opening a shop 'although the doors don't actually open'.

Banksy's painting Devolved Parliament, sold at Sotheby's in 2019 for a then-record sum, shows MPs as what?

Chimpanzees. When the painting of an ape-filled House of Commons fetched just under £9.9 million, Banksy called it a record price for one of his paintings and added, 'Shame I didn't still own it.'

The escaping prisoner Banksy painted on Reading Prison in 2021 was said to resemble whom?

Oscar Wilde, who was held in the jail from 1895 to 1897 and made it famous in The Ballad of Reading Gaol. The prisoner's rope of knotted bedsheets ends in a typewriter.

Banksy's 2022 mural in Borodianka, Ukraine, shows a man resembling Vladimir Putin being what?

Thrown in judo by a small boy. Putin is a judo black belt, and Ukraine put the mural, painted on a house wrecked by shelling, on a postage stamp for the invasion's first anniversary.

How did Banksy give a cut-back tree near Finsbury Park its 'leaves' in 2024?

Painted the wall behind it. Green paint in the shade of Islington Council's signs lines up with the bare branches, as if sprayed there by the stencilled figure holding a pressure washer beside it.

Banksy's September 2025 mural of a judge beating a protester with a gavel appeared on which building?

The Royal Courts of Justice. Guards quickly covered the mural, and the courts service had it taken down, saying the listed building's 'original character' had to be maintained.

Banksy's 2026 statue in central London shows a suited man walking off his plinth, blinded by what?

His own flag. It blows back across the man's face as he strides off the plinth, set among monuments to empire and war; asked about the spot, Banksy said: 'There was a bit of a gap.'

Which message did Banksy paint in seven-foot letters in the penguin enclosure at London Zoo?

'We're bored of fish' went up after Banksy climbed into the enclosure; in the same spirit he sneaked his own works onto the walls of Tate Britain and four New York museums.

Whose debut CD did Banksy swap in 48 UK record shops in 2006 for his own art and Danger Mouse remixes?

Paris Hilton's. Banksy doctored 500 copies of her album Paris, retitling tracks 'Why Am I Famous?' and 'What Have I Done?', and left the barcode in place so shoppers could buy one without noticing.

In 2006 Banksy smuggled an inflatable Guantanamo Bay detainee into which California theme park?

Disneyland. The hooded figure in an orange jumpsuit stood inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride for about 90 minutes before the ride was closed and the figure removed.

Banksy designed the cover art for which band's 2003 album Think Tank?

Blur. Banksy also painted a spoof Royal Family mural for the band's single 'Crazy Beat'; in 2009 Hackney Council partly painted it over in error while the building's owner begged the workmen to stop.

Banksy's 2014 Cheltenham mural of men snooping on a phone box was near which agency's HQ?

GCHQ. Spy Booth showed three trenchcoated spies with listening devices around a real phone box, soon after Edward Snowden's surveillance leaks; it vanished in 2016 during repairs to the house.

A 2016 geographic-profiling study linked Banksy's works to the movements of which man?

Robin Gunningham. The Queen Mary University of London team used a technique devised for tracking criminals, and the paper came out only after a delay caused by Banksy's lawyers.

Which mass-market Banksy book compiled the contents of his three earlier self-published booklets?

Wall and Piece. Published by a Random House imprint in 2005, it prints the line 'Copyright is for losers' directly above the notice in which Banksy, 'against his better judgement', asserts his own.

Which Bristol photographer sold Banksy's early work and became his agent until they parted in 2009?

Steve Lazarides began by taking pictures of Banksy's graffiti, became his fixer, gatekeeper and agent, and sold the work from a gallery in a former Soho sex shop.

Which member of Massive Attack, a former graffiti artist known as 3D, has been identified as a Banksy friend?

Robert Del Naja sprayed graffiti in Bristol as 3D in the 1980s before forming the band. Some critics see his influence in Banksy's work, and he has at times been rumoured to be Banksy himself.

In 2005 Banksy sneaked a fake cave painting into the British Museum, showing a prehistoric hunter pushing what?

A shopping trolley. Peckham Rock hung for days beside a spoof label about 'early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds', and in 2018 the museum put it back on show in an exhibition on dissent.

Banksy's 2024 silhouette of a howling wolf was painted on which object on a Peckham rooftop?

A satellite dish. It was the fourth of nine creature silhouettes Banksy unveiled around London on consecutive days, and was apparently stolen from the garage roof within hours of appearing.

Banksy's 2020 Valentine's Day mural in Bristol shows a girl with a catapult firing a burst of what?

Red flowers. They burst across the side of a house in Barton Hill the day before Valentine's Day, and within two days someone had scrawled graffiti right across them.

What was the collective title of the Banksy works that appeared across East Anglian towns in August 2021?

A Great British Spraycation. Banksy claimed the seaside pieces in an Instagram video, but a council removed one in Gorleston, where a child had died nearby when an inflatable trampoline burst.

How did Bristol City Council decide in 2006 whether Banksy's Well Hung Lover mural could stay?

A public vote. Of those who answered online, 97% wanted the naked man hanging from a window kept, so a council that was cracking down on graffiti gave this one its blessing.

Banksy's Mobile Lovers, a couple embracing while checking their phones, was sold to save what?

A youth club. The piece appeared by Bristol's Broad Plain Boys' Club, and when the council claimed it Banksy wrote to say the club should keep it, raising over £400,000.

In 2018, fans could win Banksy's Dismaland sculpture Dream Boat for a £2 donation by doing what?

Guessing its weight. Banksy gave the coin-operated sculpture to the charity behind London's Choose Love pop-up shop, which put it on show and promised it to whoever came closest.