New snaps reportedly show the artist jetting around Europe on trips with his private school
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’.
This picture reportedly shows young Gunningham resting on a ski slope in Italy
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 a 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.
A caption accompanying a print-out of this picture appears to identify the boy as Gunningham
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.
A shot from West Berlin in the 1980s is said to show Gunningham third from right
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.
Neither Gunningham nor anyone associated with Banksy have ever denied that the two men are one and the same.
Already the most famous street artist in the UK, he started turning graffiti into high art favoured by the wealthy, with exhibitions in Britain and abroad.
He has popped up with new pieces stealthily created in public places around the world ever since, including the barriers of the West Bank.
Many of his murals call for peace and poke fun at authority and inequality, featuring characters like rats, police and children.
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