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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

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atonse·

Just amazing work.

What's the latest theory on who Banksy is? (My bet is that it's a small group of people).

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Banksy is just one dude. But he hires people to help complete his vision, Just like most major artists these days.

This isn’t a recent thing. I’m no expert in this field but my understanding is that most of the old masters had a “studio” full of assistants and apprentices who were largely responsible for the work attributed to the artist.

Just a few days ago I was looking at a Canaletto that was really pretty rubbish. Apparently he never visited the scene of the painting - his assistants traveled, came back with sketches etc and he finished it off, apparently in a rush.

I thought it was pretty much agreed it was Robin Gunningham?

One of the guys behind the band Massive Attack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Del_Naja

This is a popular theory but hasn't been confirmed, and the evidence for it is pretty circumstantial, right?

Correct. There's correlation with the band's tour dates and artwork popping up. Robin Gunningham is the other popular theory. Either could have been the "Rob" Goldie was referencing.

One of his earlier stunts (from 2005) was to smuggle a fake cave painting into the British Museum in London. It remained on display for three days before staff spotted it and removed it. What was the tell-tale sign it wasn't authentic?

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/7CA5/production/...

This article has a picture with the info placard for the piece:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/may/16/ian-hislop-p...

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