Manchester City UK. 6th December, 2013. Man near Street Art exhibition at Deansgate, Manchester. 'Northern Souls' at the Great Northern. - A showcase of life-sized work by infamous street artist, STEWY. a pop up street art show. Mr Manchester is the centrepiece in a new exhibition by street artist Stewy – Northern Souls, open at the Great Northern Warehouse. A new stencil by the Bristol-based, Manchester enthusiast artist has been created as a fundraiser for Christie’s. Stewy’s work has become increasingly collected and is sought by international art shows. © Mar Photographics/Alamy Live

Manchester City UK. 6th December, 2013. Man near Street Art exhibition at Deansgate, Manchester. 'Northern Souls' at the Great Northern. - A showcase of life-sized work by infamous street artist, STEWY. a pop up street art show. Mr Manchester is the centrepiece in a new exhibition by street artist Stewy – Northern Souls, open at the Great Northern Warehouse. A new stencil by the Bristol-based, Manchester enthusiast artist has been created as a fundraiser for Christie’s. Stewy’s work has become increasingly collected and is sought by international art shows. © Mar Photographics/Alamy Live

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Mr Manchester is the centrepiece in a new exhibition by street artist Stewy – Northern Souls, open at the Great Northern Warehouse. A new stencil by the Bristol-based, Manchester enthusiast artist has been created as a fundraiser for Christie’s, the hospital where Tony (Anthony H Wilson) lost his fight with cancer in 2007. Anonymous stencil graffiti artist Stewy may not be such a recognisable face as Tony, but his work will strike a chord with many Mancunians because it’s all over the city. His pigeons perch on the picture rail in the Black Lion pub, his squirrels hide under shop windows in the Northern Quarter and his stencil of celebrated Mancs can be found everywhere from the city centre to Chorlton. Three other distinctive designs – of poet John Cooper Clarke, papier mache-headed singing comedian Frank Sidebottom and the writer and gay icon Quentin Crisp – also appear in the show, all resprayed on chipboard sheets most commonly found plugging up smashed windows on vandalised buildings. The enigmatic pictures are not graffiti and the mysterious artist always asks permission before spraying. The artist is believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s but like trailblazing street artist Banksy, Stewy likes to keep his identity under wraps. Stewy’s distinctive stencils are commonplace across the UK, and his life-size portraits of British eccentric punk poets, artists, and other British icons have sparked much interest by galleries worldwide. Now the search is on to find out who Stewy is…

Location: Manchester, Northern Quarter, UK