Banksy vs King Robbo: London's Great Graffiti Feud

Who was King Robbo?

King Robbo, whose real name was John Robertson, was a London graffiti writer and one of the pioneers of the city's scene. He painted his first train in 1985 and, with his crew WRH, painted across the London Underground network in the 1980s. In graffiti terms he was a "king": an old-school writer with a long reputation. Away from graffiti, he worked as a shoe repairer.

What was the Robbo piece on the Regent's Canal?

In the autumn of 1985, aged 15, Robbo painted a piece reading "ROBBO INC" in tall block letters on a wall under a bridge beside the Regent's Canal in Camden, below the British Transport Police headquarters. Because the wall could only be reached from the water, it was left untouched for 24 years, even escaping clean-up teams. For many writers it was a piece of graffiti history.

How did the feud start?

In December 2009 Banksy painted a series of works along the Regent's Canal. One of them used Robbo's old piece: Banksy stencilled a black-and-white workman who appeared to be pasting grey wallpaper over it, covering half of the original.

To many graffiti writers this broke one of the culture's basic rules: never go over another writer's work unless you can do better, and never go over a king. Stories also circulated of an earlier confrontation between the two, which Banksy denied.

What happened next?

In the early hours of Christmas Day 2009, Robbo crossed the canal on an inflatable boat and changed the image so that Banksy's workman appeared to be painting the words "KING ROBBO" in silver letters. Over the following months, Banksy and a group calling itself "Team Robbo" altered the wall and other Banksy works around London several times. The local press debated whether the feud was real or a publicity stunt. A Channel 4 documentary, Graffiti Wars, followed it and was broadcast in August 2011.

How did the feud end?

In April 2011, days before an exhibition of his work in Shoreditch, Robbo was found seriously injured outside his flat and left with a severe brain injury. After hearing of it, Banksy painted the canal wall back into something close to Robbo's original piece, as a tribute. Robbo died on 31 July 2014. A coroner recorded an open verdict on how the original injury happened. In 2015 Banksy included a piece dedicated to Robbo in Dismaland.

What does the feud tell us?

The feud dramatised a real divide in British graffiti between old-school writers, focused on lettering, respect and the rules of the culture, and street art, focused on images, publicity and the art market. It also showed how the meaning of a wall can change as it is painted over again and again. See graffiti vs street art.

Where to go next

Read about Banksy and London's graffiti story.