Banksy not behind popular 'Banksy' tribute to Charlie Hebdo

Caitlin Dickson
·Reporter
London-based graphic designer Lucille Clerc drew this illustration in response to Wednesday's attack at the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.
London-based graphic designer Lucille Clerc drew this illustration in response to Wednesday's attack at the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.

The violent attack that killed 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo elicited a flood of powerful illustrations from artists around the world. Contrary to popular belief, however, the English artist Banksy was not responsible for one of them.

On Wednesday evening, an unverified Instagram account with the handle @banksy posted a particularly moving image of a pencil — whole, broken and resharpened — under the words “yesterday,” “today” and “tomorrow.” Within 24 hours, the post had received 148,000 “likes.” Despite the fact that the unverified @banksy mentioned artist @lucille_clerc directly in the caption, the image was widely perceived to be a Banksy original.

Illustration for Charlie Hebdo shooting victims by Lucille Clerk, posted by @banksy on Instagram.
Illustration for Charlie Hebdo shooting victims by Lucille Clerk, posted by @banksy on Instagram.



In a statement to the Independent on Thursday, a spokesperson for the elusive street artist confirmed that Banksy was behind neither the popular pencil drawing nor the Instagram account that posted it. Not surprisingly, there are many Twitter handles, Instagram accounts and Facebook addresses falsely claiming affiliation with the mysterious marvel.

Anyone who might have clicked on the other handle mentioned in @banksy’s post on Wednesday would have noticed that artist Lucille Clerc had posted the drawing, sans filter, one hour before the image on the fake Banksy account surfaced. Clerc also shared the image on Twitter and Facebook, with the caption “Break one, thousand will rise. #CharlieHebdo #JeSuisCharlie #raiseyourpencilforfreedom.”

Lucille Clerc's illustration for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting was posted on Instagram.
Lucille Clerc's illustration for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting was posted on Instagram.



The drawing’s instant virality may be due in large part to the mistaken Banksy attribution, but Clerc doesn’t care. The London-based French graphic designer and illustrator told Yahoo News via email Thursday evening that the misattribution is "a non-event."

"There are way more important things to talk about at the moment, and in the end what matters is that this image speaks to people, so the more it spreads the better," Clerc wrote. "About how I feel, I am devastated, just like everyone else. All my thoughts are for the victims and their families, there are no words to express how much they will be missed. We will all remember this day for the rest of our lives."

"Ideas don't break, ideas don't die," she continued. "Charlie became immortal yesterday and I hope that this terrible day will make us cherish and protect our freedom with even more wit and humor. These great artists and journalists believed in freedom and in people’s intelligence, and we owe them to keep their hopes alive. I’m not a cartoonist, but today I am and we should all be. My drawing was a spontaneous reaction, I didn’t expect it to spread but I’m very moved it did. I can only hope it will inspire more people to use their pencils too and that there will be more pacifist answers to this tragedy."