Just as music has Mozart and Bizet, art has its share of child prodigies. Nineteenth-century British painter John Everett Millais, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite group known for works such as Ophelia, was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 11, while Pablo Picasso began his first oil painting, Le Picador, when he was eight years old. In more recent years, other young artists have attracted not only media spotlight but also buyers. They include:
- Marla Olmstead, born in New York state in 2000. Maria's international profile snowballed after one of her paintings was purchased by a customer at a neighbourhood coffee shop where they were displayed. That led to a gallery exhibition when she was four, and at the age of six her Jackson Pollock-style splatters were worth more than US$20,000. However, a 60 Minutes report in 2005 raised questions about how much help she received from her father. She was also the focus of the 2007 documentary My Kid Could Paint That by director Amir Bar-Lev.
- Kieron Williamson, born in 2002. Britain's so-called mini Monet from the town of Holt is praised for his use of perspective and shading in the coastal scenes and rural landscapes that he favours. All 33 paintings in his show last year, which included pastels, watercolours and oils, were sold within half an hour for a total of GBP150,000 (HK$1.9 million). The soccer-loving lad had just turned eight.
- Aelita Andre, born in 2007. The young Australian has been dabbling with paint since she was a baby, encouraged by her parents, both artists. A Melbourne-based art curator was impressed enough with one of her works to include it in a joint exhibition when she was two. Her fame has continued to grow; in June a New York gallery showed 24 of her paintings, described by some critics as surrealist abstracts, with works fetching up to US$10,000.