There’s been a rash of art babies recently and - apart from the parents no doubt telling everyone that their kids, “can be anything they want so long as they’re not artists” - the chances are good (looking around at artists and their parents) that they will be. So it's probably best to bite the bullet and get the young people together with paints, brushes, video cameras and (for the bolder parent) chisels and let them loose because young artistic geniuses are on the up and up.
Take for example the awesomely cute Autumn de Forest. Nine-year-old Autumn (you get the idea from her name that her parents were onto her art potential from the get-go) sold her work at auction earlier this year and was hammered down at $NZ340,000. Hard to believe Mum and Dad weren’t in on the act but you can make up your own mind here. Then there’s seven-year-old Kieron Williamson (the boy they call the Mini Monet which has got to be better than the Stunted Surat or even Tiny Titian - we could go on) who takes a more conventional approach to his art reaching back to landscapes of the Norfolk kind. His king-hit price wise is $17,000 for a work called Sunrise at Morston. And, just so you don’t think that the NZ has the monopoly on art boostering, Kieron’s agent claims that the young boy has, “probably become one of the most collectable artists currently exhibiting worldwide." More of KW’s output here.
Images: Top de Forest. Bottom Williamson
