Kieron Williamson: Boy wonder
Kieron Williamson's extraordinary gift as a painter has been likened by our own art critic to that of the Old Masters. But he's still only nine. What does the future hold for such a prodigy?
Maroon tie flying from his pale blue school shirt, Kieron Williamson hurtles along the lane outside his new home wearing a pair of hand-me-down inline skates. It is not how you might expect to find an artistic prodigy on the cusp of an exhibition that will earn in excess of £100,000.
Maroon tie flying from his pale blue school shirt, Kieron Williamson hurtles along the lane outside his new home wearing a pair of hand-me-down inline skates. It is not how you might expect to find an artistic prodigy on the cusp of an exhibition that will earn in excess of £100,000.
Two years ago, when I first met Kieron, he was a sweetly monosyllabic seven-year-old whose unusually proficient pastels and acrylics of the countryside around his Norfolk home had attracted praise and a waiting list of 680 buyers. Now there is a waiting list of 6,000, as Americans, Chinese and Germans clamour for a Kieron original. Paintings he sold for £2,000 have been resold for £10,000. His fifth exhibition opened yesterday at his local gallery in Holt and sold out in 10-and-a-half minutes, one painting fetching £15,595.
Two years is a long time for any child, let alone a prodigy. I wondered how nine-year-old Kieron would have changed, and how this unhealthy concoction of money and media hype might affect him..
