Anonymous legendary street artist Banksy has allegedly been unmasked by someone who went through public tax records until they matched known prices of his sold art to an individual tax return. A auction offering up his identity to the highest bidder on eBay has since been removed. Banksy is one of the most successful grafitti artists of all time, with celebrities like Angelina Jolie, and Christina Aguilera shelling out tens of thousands for his work. He’s pulled difficult and dangerous stunts, like substituting his own work in multiple art galleries, painting at least nine freedom murals on the wall in Palestine, and sneaking into animal enclosures in zoos.

Will enigmatic British artist Banksy finally have his identity revealed? Quite possibly, if eBay auction items that promise to deliver the man behind the street art can deliver.

One listing some news sites are linking to (that has since been removed) read, “I have uncovered [Banksy’s] identity by matching up the prices of his sold pieces to corresponding tax records. I will reveal no more details … I give you 100 percent assurance that is most certainly the full name of the street artist known as ‘Banksy.’ ”

If you search “Banksy identity” on eBay, several items promising to give the highest bidder the artist’s real name still show up, ranging in price from just pennies to thousands of dollars.

While the man behind the artist has managed to stay fairly unknown, he’s not totally incognito. Banksy directed an opening sequence for “The Simpsons” in 2010 and created the film “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” The faux documentary was nominated for a BAFTA Tuesday for outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer.

[From The Today Show via ONTD]

I recently watched Exit Through The Gift Shop on Netflix streaming and I didn’t get the sense that it was a faux documentary. Without giving anything away, it seemed absolutely real to me, and if it wasn’t it was complete genius. You never got to see Banksy’s face and he talked through a voice scrambling device. I did suspect that the plot twist could be a put on at the end, but again if it was part fiction it was so seamless that it really fooled me. (It did seem too good to be true, but the film was so damn good that I won’t get into it as I don’t want to reveal spoilers. Watch it!) From what I can find, none of Banksy’s people ever admitted it if the movie was somehow a put on, and if it was they fooled way more than just the viewing audience. I’ll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, I came away with a lot of respect for this guy. He deserves the hype, and he had so many funny one liners in the film.

Getting back to this news of the identity auction – there’s Oscar buzz around Exit Through The Gift Shop, and Kaiser reminds me that the Oscar nominations are coming out next Tuesday. What better way to remind us about this gem of a movie than through a little mini scandal over the artist’s identity?

Here are some works by Banksy. The first one is my favorite so far. credit: Banksy’s website Wikipedia and Flickr Infrogmation and Leeks