The Archive

What is the Banksy Captured archive?

10,000 photographs of Banksy at work, shot by Steve Lazarides between 1997 and 2008. On film. Before camera phones existed. The only insider archive from those years — published as the two-volume Banksy Capturedseries and the Limited Edition hardcover.

The archive covers eleven years of work, from the early Bristol stencils through the worldwide phase: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, the museum interventions, the bridges, the rats. Steve was there with a Nikon for most of it.

Where do the photographs come from?

Steve Lazarides was Banksy's closest collaborator from 1997 to 2008 — first photographer, then agent and dealer. The access wasn't negotiated; it was the consequence of being one of the few people in most of those rooms in the first place. Steve had a camera. He used it.

The result is a primary source. Not a curated retrospective, not a licensed reproduction project — the contact sheets from the years that defined Banksy's public reputation, kept by the person who took them.

Why does the archive matter?

Roughly 80% of Banksy's early work has been destroyed, painted over, or removed by collectors and councils. The streets the work was made for didn't preserve it. The councils didn't care. The weather didn't wait. Most of what existed before 2008 now exists only in photographs — and most of those photographs are in this archive.

That's why the books are documentation, not decoration. They are where the work still lives.

What's in the books?

Volume 1 — Evidence covers the early years: 4am Bristol stencils, the first London pieces, the Pictures on Walls collective, the warehouse sessions. Volume 2 — Framed covers the worldwide phase: Turf War, Barely Legal, the Bethlehem trips, the museum interventions, Dismaland's preludes.

The Volume 2 Limited Edition Hardback is the same archive in a collector format: pink linen slipcase, numbered out of 5,000, signed by Steve. Same photographs, same insider access, built to last on a shelf.

See the full catalogue and editions at /about/editions, or browse the books at /shop.

Read more

For the photographer behind the archive, see /about/steve-lazarides. For how the photographs were taken, see /about/the-process. For why this isn't a corporate-published Banksy book, see /about/the-publisher. For the press record, see /press and the Reuters investigation.