This article reports on a prank in which the artist Banksy, disguised as a British pensioner, surreptitiously hung his own work in various notable galleries.
I thought pensioner meant someone who was retired, on a pension. The pictures show him looking like someone wearing a disguise. Is there a connotation of pensioner I'm missing, or do British retirees just look like that?

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I thought pensioner meant someone who was retired, on a pension. The pictures show him looking like someone wearing a disguise.

It does. He looks more like a spy or child molester to me.

could be a dope-smoking axe murderer

Interestingly, the OED says this:

" 1. One who is in receipt of pension or regular pay; one who is in the pay of another; in early use, a paid or hired soldier, a mercenary; in 17-18th c. often with implication of base motives: a hireling, tool, creature."

I suppose the idea of a "mercenary with base motives" would work here.

base motives

wouldn't that be a baseball player?

I have found a very wide variety of uses for the word:

1) One who is in receipt of a pension or regular pay. This is clearly a very general term and can therefore be used in relation to a mercenary. To be a 'hireling' seems to date from about 1487.
2) To receive a consideration for past services (the mind boggles)
3) Inmate of the Chelsea and Greenwich hospitals.
4) A member of a bodyguard, a retainer (1632)
5) The officer of the Inns of Court who collected the pensions etc.
6) One who makes a stated periodical payment.
7) A boarder; especially a girl or woman living en pension in a convent or school in France, Belgium etc.

I'd guess that, as the story favours banksie, the information was fed to the writer of the article by banksie and so while banksie might have said his intent was to appear as a pensioner, an independent reporter might not see banksie's disguise as he intended it. I thought he looked like the love child of Jacques Clouseau and Rolf Harris. That would explain both the clumsy nature of his attempts and his need to paint on walls...

beans

Beans, it is great to see someone here from Australia! I hope you will stay with us because we'd love an Australian perspective on words.