Banksy's ex-manager lifts lid on life of elusive artist - from burner phones to cunning disguises

He is now thought to be in his fifties, but this year after putting an array of spray painted animals across London, is as busy and popular as ever. And it seems likely that the elusive figure will keep on making street art until he dies.

“Banksy will never retire. I’ve told him countless times to do so. He needs to enjoy his life.” The comment comes from Steve Lazarides, who knows Banksy better than most. A fellow Bristolian, he worked with, photographed and managed Banksy from 1997 to 2008.

The colourful character is looking back on their time together as he prepares to sell most of the prized possessions he has from their time together. Sounding like a proud dad, he says: “Banksy, what is all the fuss about? Have a look at what he’s done. He was way past being a graffiti artist even in the early 2000s the guy was going out and doing exhibition drops. We were doing shows with 200 live rats in. He was taking it to the man. Who else is gonna go and take a picture and put it in the Tate? Most people don’t think like that, let alone execute. That is where we came in.”

The 55-year-old first met Banksy when he worked at Sleazenation magazine and loved graffiti in the late Nineties. He was sent to photograph Banksy in Bristol and was impressed by the work he saw and they exchanged numbers. “It was funny and he had balls, I was fully sold and I would do anything to help this kid. After the shoot we had a few beers... And then a few more.”

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Shortly after this Steve gave Banksy a lift in Bristol to pick up screenprints and they began selling the artworks together. This started out of the back of a car for £5 for a print called Rude Copper. Steve realised the prints were worth more than this and told Banksy he could help make him more money. “I said why don’t we set something up and do this properly. I took an artist and a movement from being worth £250 a canvas to £5million.”

As Banksy’s success grew and his fame across the spread so did the prices of the prints. Steve said: “Did I think it could get that big? Absolutely not. We were just two kids having fun.”

He says it was difficult to keep Banksy’s identity a secret and was very keen not to say too much, and reveal who he was. “The anonymity was a big thing, it started off with self preservation in Bristol. He didn’t want to get caught, he didn’t want to go to jail, fair enough. And then as the years went by and it went on for longer, I think that the anonymity became quite a disease. Everyone has this figure in their mind, they have a folk hero, and it looks different in everybody’s mind. He’s never really got to enjoy the fame he got.”

Banksy took his anonymity so seriously that he changed phones after each of his street art jobs and communicated on cheap pay-as-you-go handsets. Steve recalls: “Every couple of weeks, I’ll have to go out and buy two new burner phones with cash and not giving any address. My shops became further outside Central London because I didn’t want to keep going back to the same one. I ended up with a room full.”

Steve says the highlight of their time together was in 2004 when they managed to both enter London’s Natural History Museum. Disguised as an employee, Banksy managed to put a taxidermied rat in a glass-fronted box on the wall.

Steve, who would travel with him to photograph and document many of the big stunts, said: “The stunt at the Natural History Museum tops the lot. Drilling holes into the walls and putting up a real stuffed rat in the middle of half-term will take some beating that’s for sure. He picked a space that’s just behind the big dinosaur that they’ve got in the entrance. Much to my surprise, he pulled a drill out of his bag.”

Another famous Banksy moment was in October 2003 when he entered Tate Britain disguised as a pensioner and stuck one of his own creations in a vacant slot on the wall.

Aside from the stunts and wall art there are the prints themselves. Perhaps the most famous work is called Girl with Balloon and Steve hints this could be about a former romance. Steve is clearly not a fan and calls it “the housewife’s favourite” holding up a copy in a promotional video, before adding: “Shown a thousand times around the world. Rumour is that (girl) is his ex-bird and he painted this when he was upset she dumped him, which sounds about right.”

But asked to elaborate by the he says: “The origins of Girl with Balloon will remain a secret, I’ve been sworn to secrecy, so only his Lordship can tell.”

Steve’s online auction with Julien’s is set to net him more than £1million. Items up for grabs include original stencils used by the artist, phones, notes and plans for projects and even a pair of Puma brand Turf War trainers well-worn by Banksy with his name inscribed inside. The stencils featuring Banksy rats and his name and a chimpanzee are sure to be sought after. The artist did his own show in 2023 called Cut and Run which was largely made up of similar stencils.

Since leaving Banksy, Steve set up his own gallery (which sold Banksy prints among other works) but now wants to move away from him. “I want to get on with my life as a photographer, this is what I was doing very well before the Banksy mania. It’s time to let the Banksy escapades go,” he insists, although critics say he is selling private correspondence and drawings which his friend never meant to be seen – let alone bought – by the public.

Steve perhaps unsurprisingly says Banksy would be “quietly supportive” of the sale, something sources close to Banksy scoffed at when I spoke to them. Others point out it is quite sad to see Steve selling these items, a clear sign Banksy and Steve are unlikely to be drinking buddies anytime soon.

In a film to promote the sale Steve says: “We never really got on, we were different slices of life. We both recognised we could have a great working relationship, and we did.”

• The Banksy Archive of Steve Lazarides Auction, runs online until 5pm Thursday at Julien’s Auctions.

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