Big Interview: Art dealer Robin Barton on restoring Banksy's Spy Booth in Cheltenham and his incredible journey to Bethlehem

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Along the walls of the war-torn West Bank, the concrete divide between Palestine and Israel is plastered with bullet holes and graffiti.

At security check-points along the perimeter, armed guards patrol the area with guns likely to have been imported from Europe or Russia – the conflict an ever-growing reminder of the worldwide weapons trade.

During 2010, peace talks were ongoing between the two nations and the Obama Administration. The aim was to end decades of conflict within a year although the prospect of success was only slight.

Talks continued and while the slaughter slowed, within the walls of a marble yard in Bethlehem, two Palestine men unravelled blankets over a pair of slabs weighing more than two tons apiece, revealing two distinctive stencil drawings said to be the works of Banksy.

For a cost of around £40,000, the slabs were lifted onto the back of a Palestinian truck, secretly moved beyond the wall and transferred into Israeli hands.

From there and with the help of a foreign journalist, they made the long and arduous journey through barren land before finally reaching a warehouse in London via Felixstowe international port in Suffolk.

The first, a picture of a girl patting down a soldier going by the name Stop & Search, now resides in the Keszler Gallery on East 62nd Street, in the Hamptons, New York City – sold for more than $1 million.

The second, famously known as Wet Dog, removed from a Palestinian bus stop, remains in London.

Their appearance in art galleries on either side of the pond baffled the industry. They were symbols of hope at the heart of a hellish war and are now being viewed for Western satisfaction.

They weren’t officially confirmed as Banksy’s, according to news reports at the time, but the man who orchestrated the clandestine coup – unmistakable for his glasses, goatee and painted fingernails – told the Echo he has never made a deal without complete corroboration with Banksy’s “management”.

Robin Barton, international arts dealer and former celebrity photographer, spent most of his newspaper career in New York where he documented the lives of famous actors such as Sir Alec Guinness, the star of the English television series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The 55-year-old now owns the Bankrobber London art gallery in Mayfair.

The former arts student from Leamington Spa learnt his trade in Cheltenham having lived in Pittville for five years while working at a stencil workshop run by Lyn LeGrice, an artist and sculptor from Penzance.

While Banksy is deemed to be the Robin Hood of the arts world, Robin shamelessly labels himself the Sheriff of Nottingham, restoring Banksy artwork for the benefit of his own bank balance.

Conspiracy theorists claim that Robin Barton is Banksy but he has quashed the theory.

Even so, he admits to purposefully creating a bubble in which he could be Banksy as part of a surreal and sweeping self-promoting subversion.

It calls into question whether his stories are true – only for photographs from his journey to and from the Middle East to appear in my inbox.

And he has been in the news again recently, having been drafted to Cheltenham with friend and painting conservator, Tom Organ, who also helped him during his period in Palestine.

This time, they have been examining the vandalised Spy Booth mural in Fairview, which faces out of a semi-detached listed house in Hewlett Road – the picture of three clandestine spies listening into a phone box now synonymous with Banksy worldwide.

Attempts to broker a deal to buy the property have been stalled for now as Cheltenham Borough Council enforcers investigate substantial and unconsented works within the walls of the Cheltenham home.

Hekmat Kaveh, a 54-year-old self-made millionaire architect, wants to buy the building for $1 million to preserve the Banksy.

In contrast, Robin Barton, the gold-chained capital dealer, would probably see himself as one of the mural’s trench coat-clad secret agents who moved heaven and earth to bring two Banksy artworks out of the shadows.

“There is a professional understanding between Banksy’s management and myself,” Robin says as he explains his role.

“I am the bad person in the story really. The irony is that they don’t really like what I do and they say I am a bit of an ‘annoyance’.

“But there is nothing he can do because, unless he shows us who he is, I will continue to restore Banksys and sell them on while also keeping his name in the public eye.

“This is my passion. I do it because I admire Banksy as an artist and because his work is clever and ironic. I admire his ability to stay anonymous and I find it amazing how he has managed to stay invisible for this long.

“The difference between his work and others is that it always holds a political message in there somewhere and there is always a jibe or a political function to his work.

“In the case of the Spy Booth piece in Cheltenham, the jibe is obviously targeted towards GCHQ.”

Despite vandalism to the mural – which Robin believes is the work of a team of anti-Banksy rebels – he is certain it can be salvaged.

“I think it is essential this piece stays where it is because it only works in the context of Cheltenham,” he continues.

“With the phone box and the GCHQ connection, they are both key to the picture.

“In some cases, ordinarily I would only take and sell a piece by Banksy if it is under threat of demolition but, in this instance, we were able to get in there early enough despite attempts to remove the piece.”

To illustrate Banksy’s elusiveness, Robin couldn’t believe his luck when he got his hands on the Banksy What? Boy sold by a London shopkeeper for £1,000.

He sold it for £220,000 to an anonymous bidder. It was his first successful Banksy sale.

Taken with a pinch of salt, he also tells the story of how the sale of Slave Labour came about – another of Banksy’s works on a Poundland in London sold to a bidder in Florida for $1.1 million.

He claims the sale drew attention from MI5 and the CIA.

Whether credible or not, he certainly knows how to create a world I can only imagine in an Ian Fleming novel.

“I do set up a smoke screen of who Banksy is,” he continues. “There are a lot of games that are being played and I am very much a game player.

“People have assumed that I am Banksy but I have set that up so it appears that I am. But I have to keep my integrity and credibility as a dealer so I have never made a deal that isn’t legitimate.

“People want to hear a story behind a piece of art and what better way to deal art than to do it by selling artwork created by somebody nobody knows.

“When we went to Palestine, it could have been dangerous and it could have gone horribly wrong. I mean, it would have been very foolish to go in there wearing my blue suede shoes with a pocket full of bank notes.

“It was part of the journey to get them on a flatbed truck and transfer them into Israel and out of the West Bank.

“It is a terrible, destroyed part of the world and the deal wasn’t exactly above board. It therefore had to be completely clandestine but, for me, that’s what makes it interesting.”