The Drinker is a statue by graffiti artist Banksy, not to be confused with the stencil of the same name, a graffiti artwork of a rat drinking a cocktail, on a wall at North Beach, Lowestoft, England.
In 2004, the statue was placed in a small square at Princes Circus on Shaftesbury Avenue between New Oxford Street and High Holborn in central London. It is a subversive comment using The Thinker by Auguste Rodin.
In March 2004, The Drinker was stolen by "art terrorist" and football hooligan Andy Link (also known as AK47), a former porn star with an arrest record and a record of drug charges.
Around a year after Link took The Drinker, Link says he registered "the lost and found item" with police, and contacted Banksy, asking for ã5,000, or an original canvas, "to cover costs".
In 2007, three years after Link stole it, the sculpture was taken from Link's garden, while he was away.
In December 2015, Link re-installed, as The Stinker, "an imitation of Banksy's sculpture" The Drinker, modified with a toilet seat, cistern and graffiti, in central London.
The Stinker (2015) was a commissioned work from sculptor Emmanuel Okoro.
The 2016 crowdfunded documentary (with "dream-reenactment sequence", "amusing artifice") film The Banksy Job is about Andy Link and the work.