March, 2005 : A British has managed to evade security and hang his work in four of New York's most prestigious and well-guarded museums. “Banksy”, who has never disclosed his real identity, claims to have carried out the unsual smuggling operation on one day, during opening hours. Some of the works went undetected for several days.

Banksy commented on this expedition, “I would have had to appear between two Picassos. And I'm not good enough to get away with that.”

Banksy has staged similar stunts in the past, managing to smuggle some of his works into Britains' Tate Gallery and the famous Louvre in France.

Banksy told a news agency he had been inspired to do so by his sister, who once threw away several of his works saying that they would never hang in any museum.

May, 2005 : Banksy hung a fake prehistoric rock art of a caveman with a shopping trolley on the walls of the British Museum. He also hung a sign saying “This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the post-Catatonic era.”

He also ran a competition on his website ( http://www.banksy.co.uk/ ) for fans to have their photographs taken with the rock, offering a shopping trolley as a prize!

August, 2005 : Israel's controversial West Bank Barrier was painted by Banksy with satirical images of life on the side of the barrier. The Israeli security forces tried to threaten the artist by shooting in the air. But that did not deter him.

June, 2006 : Banksy painted a mural near Bristol City Council's offices. The graffiti depicted a woman in her underwear standing behind a suited man leaning out of a window, and a naked man hanging onto the ledge.

The public was invited to decide whether it should stay or be removed. An internet discussion forum showed 97 percent of submitters supported the work. Most of the people thought that the graffiti “brightened up” the urban environment.

September 2006 : Banksy replaced Paris Hilton's album, which had entered the UK chart at number 29, with his own remixes and gave them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? And What Am I For? The notorious artist also changed pictures of her on the CD cover to show the US socialite topless and with a dog's head.

These ‘remixed' CDs were placed in 48 record shops across the UK. The original CDs were picked up and the doctored ones were kept on the rack with original bar codes.

An HMV spokesman said the chain had recovered seven CDs from two Brighton shops but was unaware that other locations were affected. No customers complained or returned the doctored version of the CD.

September 2006 : The Los Angeles street art community went aflame with the news that British graffiti phenom Banksy was planning a warehouse show in Los Angeles. The location of this event titled “Barely Legal” was announced on Banksy's website two hours before the event started on September 15, 2007.

The exhibition's centrepiece was a live elephant, painted to look like pink floral wall paper – a reference, it is believed, to weighty problems such as poverty. The elephant was made to stand in a makeshift living room, to blend in to its surroundings.

The exhibition also featured film footage of Banksy placing a life size replica of Guantanamo Bay detainee in a theme park in Disneyland.

April 2007 : Transport of London painted over Banksy's iconic image of scene from Tarantino's movie Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Though the image was very popular, Transport of London claimed that the “graffiti” created a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime.

April 2007 : Bonhams of London auctioned Banksy's “Space Girl and Bird” for $576,000, 20 times the estimated price.

May 2007 : Banksy gained the award for Art's Freatest living Briton. But as usual didn't turn up to collect the award.

If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture.

—Banksy, in The Independent

The famed guerrilla artist is a native of Yate near Bristol. Not much is known to the world about Banksy other than that he was born in 1974 and he was trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti in the late 1980s. His real name is possibly Robert Banks.

By 2000 Banksy had turned to the art of stencilling because it was much easier to complete a piece. His stencils feature messages which are usually anti-ear, anti-capitalist, anti-establishment or pro-freedom.

Banksy important shows would include “Turf War” (2003), held in a warehouse in London, a twelve day exhibition of oil paintings in Westbourne Grove, London (2005) and “Barely Legal” in Los Angeles (2006). He also is involved in various projects including paid work with corporations and charity work for organisations like Greenpeace.

Banksy has published a manifesto on his website. The text of the manifesto is an extract from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO who was among the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen in 1945. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of the World War II help the internees regain their humanity.

Banksy's website is registered in the name of Steve Lazarides, a photographer. Lazarides is alos Banksy's agent and runs a gallery called Lazs Inc. in Soho, London.

Banksy has authored four books – Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall , Existencilism , Cut it Out and Wall and Piece . This year he plans to publish Wall's It All About and launch the book from a secret location from London.

Till now, Banksy has never been photographed or “seen”!