Street art of Trump walking against evolution falsely attributed to Banksy
The new photo being circulated and widely attributed to Banksy is a digitally altered version of a mural by street artist Loretto seen in Soho in June 2017
CLAIM
An image of street art depicting U.S. President Donald Trump walking backwards through the evolution of man has been shared on social media and attributed to secretive British street artist Banksy.
BACKGROUND
A photo appearing to show a mural of U.S. President Donald Trump walking backwards through the famous March of Progress illustration has been circulating on social media and attributed to secretive British street artist Banksy.
The image became prominent on social media since March 2 with tens of thousands of shares and likes. Below is an example of a post on X by a Dutch user, who describes himself as a journalist for Raam, a website publishing news about Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
This is confirmed on the website that lists Hubert Smeets as a contributor and describes him as a journalist published by a number of major Dutch news organisations. He has over 23,000 followers on X.
The following day the image was also shared on X by William Dalrymple — a renowned Scottish historian, broadcaster and writer with over 1.2 million followers on X.
Dalrymple did follow up the post with another post asking if the image might be by Loretto.
Since, the image has been shared even more widely but as some pointed out in the comments, the mural is not from Banksy and appeared to be edited.
METHOD
Banksy typically publishes photos of his new street art on Instagram, confirming if a piece of street art is indeed his. This particular image was not found on his Instagram account.
The street art is, however, tagged at the top left with Loretto — another secretive London street artist producing Banksy-style stencil art across the city.
A Mashable report from June 2017 showcases the mural that was named March of Progress, locating it on Great Marlborough Street, in London’s central Soho area. It contained several photos posted by Instagram users of the mural. The location was, in fact, Noel Street — an extension of Great Marlborough Street — as confirmed by Google Street View.
The Street View image above was captured in September 2017 and does not show the mural, which was likely to have been painted over. A month later in mid-October, another mural by Loretto appeared and was photographed at the same location satirising the March of Progress in reference to Brexit.
The image being newly circulated appears to be a version of Loretto’s mural that was digitally altered to show Trump walking in the opposite direction. A look at Google Street View shows the last time the same location was photographed by Google in July 2024, the wall had been painted green. It had at least been green already since 2022, according to older photos on Street View.
Photos of the original mural and the digitally altered version also show the exact same markings on the wall indicating that this was not a new mural. They also show the same pipes protruding from the wall which in more recent pictures on Google Street View are no longer seen at this location.
RATING
The new photo being circulated and widely attributed to Banksy is a digitally altered version of a mural by street artist Loretto seen in Soho in June 2017.
SOURCES
Gianluca Mezzofiore (2017). New Banksy-style Donald Trump mural pops up in London. [online] Mashable. Available at: [Accessed 5 Mar. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Bansky [Accessed 5 Mar. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Brilliant, brilliant Banksy [Accessed 5 Mar. 2025].