While the identity of the secretive stencil-painter, street artist and documentarian Banksy has been available to anyone with some basic googling skills (or several thousand dollars) for awhile now, the Daily Mail laid out all the gory details of one Robin Gunningham's personal life while also ousting the identity of Mrs. Banksy - the artist's wife, Joy Millward. As it turns out, the life of a world-renowned street artist is fairly mundane.
The mild-mannered Millward is a lobbyist in the UK so, unlike her husband's politically-charged street art, she's gone legit with her activism. But like the artist himself, Millward has been keeping her husband's identity closely guarded. From the Daily Mail's interviews with those close to the couple:
'Some of Joy’s relatives have not been told who her husband is or what he does. Joy does tell people her husband is an artist of some type. She says he does the artwork for cook books and album covers. Banksy has told people he designs the sets for award ceremonies, which explains his frequent absences.'
The Daily Mail would also like to remind us they snapped photos of alleged cook book artist Gunningham three years ago (and we'd like to remind you, our across-the-pond sister site Londonist did the same back in 2007), but at this point the man's face isn't quite as interesting as the mythology and ideology, now is it?
Previously on SFist: Banksy's Identity On Auction Block, Two Banksy Pieces Spotted in SF?
DailyMail