The Dragon Bar Book

The Dragon Bar Book

By Josh Jones and James-Lee Duffy. 300 page oral history of the infamous Dragon Bar in London. A bar with only a loose grip on rules, it had gloriously graffitied toilets, a bit out the back, which became a space for the London graffiti community to paint and gather, and a free gallery space upstairs where Banksy held his first Santa’s Ghetto/first London show, FAILE and Bäst did their first UK show and many, many others exhibited. 

The Dragon Bar was, arguably and unwittingly, the birthplace of the ‘street art explosion’. We spoke to pretty much every artist (and staff and wild regular drinkers) who exhibited, drank and had a lot of fun there, including Banksy, Ben Eine, fashion designer NOKI (who was the original door person and would cut people’s ties off if they tried to get in wearing one), FAILE, Laura Lees, Toasters, Lucie Flynn, Mode 2, James Jessop, INVADER and many more.