Banksy caught in the act for first time

His works command tens of thousands of pounds at auction and he counts Hollywood actors among his fans, yet his agent claims never to have met him.

Now it appears that Banksy, the elusive graffiti artist, has let his cover slip by being caught on camera at work for the first time.

He was pictured extending double yellow lines from a road on to the wall of an East London house to form a big yellow flower. To the left of the horticultural daubing sits a stencilled street-worker, sitting on a tin of paint and holding a roller.The picture was taken by a passer-by with a camera phone.

A handful of photographs claiming to show Banksy have surfaced before, but this is believed to be the first time an image has been produced showing the artist at work.

The mural, in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, is thought to be a riposte to the local council, which has vowed to cleanse the borough of his graffiti.

A council spokesman said last week: “Whilst some graffiti is considered to be art, we know that many of our residents think graffiti in areas where they live, such as local housing estates, is an eyesore.”

The neighbouring council of Hackney has also said that it will hose away his work. “We can’t make a decision as to whether something is art or graffiti,” a spokesman said. “The Government judges us on the number of clean walls we have.”

Banksy, whose real name is thought to be Robert or Robin Banks, is known for his artistic pranks, which have included releasing an inflatable Guantanamo prisoner doll in Disneyland.

The British Museum took eight days to realise that Banksyus Maximus, a rock depicting a Stone Age hunter with a shopping trolley, was not a genuine artefact.

This summer he made a Stonehenge-style circle at the Glastonbury Festival out of portable toilets, and he once painted a hole with blue sky poking through the Palestinian side of the West Bank wall.