Ten-year old painter: A "mini-Monet" in the UK

As the latest darling of the art world — a selection of his works sold for £400,000 in the past two weeks alone — you might expect Kieron Williamson to be celebrating his success with a whirl of celebrity parties and champagne. Instead, when he isn’t painting, Kieron is at primary school or, now it’s the school holidays, playing with his friends. For the artist known as Mini Monet due to his incredible watercolour and oil paintings is just ten years old. His pictures, sought after by collectors all over the world, fetch up to £35,000 each. Twelve days ago, his earnings surpassed an extraordinary £1.5 million after 23 paintings sold for £242,000 in just 20 minutes in a phone and internet auction.
Meeting Mini Monet is a disconcerting experience. Small and softly spoken, Kieron looks not a day older than his years. His studio is in his parents’ house, next door to the kitchen. Scattered about the room are discarded canvases, paints and, on an easel, his latest work — a delicate pastel of a bluebell wood. Yet how can a child be capable of producing such beautiful, impeccably executed artworks? Could this be merely a clever scam to fool the art world, with a professional artist hidden away in the house, painting away night and day and passing off his work as Kieron’s? Or does Kieron’s dad do them for him? Certainly not. Kieron’s preternatural talent is real, and his proud father Keith, 47, and mother Michelle, 40, are as confounded by it as everyone else.
While Kieron is relaxed and at ease with his genius, it’s a different story for his parents. They appear as tortured as they are thrilled with their prodigious son. ‘I know it sounds good, but we really feel the pressure,’ says Keith, an art dealer. ‘When I sell a painting I know what I’ve paid for it and I know what mark-up I need to put on it. But how can I put a value on my son’s paintings? It’s very difficult. Michelle adds: People say “Oh, their son has a company and his parents are directors”, with the inference that we’re making some sort of business out of him. But we have to be directors: he can’t manage his money because he’s still a child.
‘The money doesn’t mean much to us. Keith and I have never had much money. It doesn’t bother us.’ Indeed, they live in a modest barn conversion in North Walsham, Norfolk. They are ordinary parents with an extraordinary child.Aside from the £800-a-month salary Michelle draws as a director of the business, Kieron’s earnings are put aside for him. ‘At least four times a year, we talk about not doing any more exhibitions or selling any more paintings, but the thing is Kieron enjoys having the exhibitions and selling his work. He likes the idea of people enjoying his pictures.’

 

Preternatural talent: Kieron's pictures, sought after by collectors all over the world, fetch up to £35,000 each. Twelve days ago, his total earnings surpassed an extraordinary £1.5¿million after 23 paintings sold for £242,000

 

And the money has enabled Kieron to acquire a remarkable art collection of his own. Hanging in the living room of the family home are 25 paintings by the eminent Norfolk painter Edward Seago, a favourite of the Queen Mother, with a combined value of £300,000. Though Kieron may have been dubbed a Mini Monet, it is Seago who is his inspiration. Well, Mini Seago doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? Kieron’s most recent acquisition was a painting by L. S. Lowry. How much was that?  ‘Er, about 30-something thousand, I think,’ he replies casually from the sofa.

Remarkable: The boy first started showing an interest in art from the age of five, during a holiday with his parents in Cornwall

He gave up toys when he discovered art and has no interest in computer games. He even owns a house in Ludham, Norfolk, in which he plans to build a studio when he is older. Kieron is clearly no ordinary child, but there is no clue as to where his remarkable talent comes from. Keith and Michelle are not remotely artistic, though they are keen collectors, and from the age of 12 months Kieron showed an interest in their pictures. ‘He would gesture at the pictures on the wall and would always notice when they’d been moved around,’ says Keith. As a toddler, Kieron, who has a nine-year-old sister, Billie-Jo, liked colouring in pictures of dinosaurs. He was neat and precise, but otherwise unremarkable. In 2007, his father, then a builder, ruptured his Achilles tendon and was told by doctors he would not be able to continue work. Boldly, he decided to have a go at art dealing, selling pictures he bought at auction.
In 2008, the family went on holiday to Cornwall and it was there that five-year-old Kieron first expressed a desire to ‘draw what he saw’.
‘He asked us to buy him a drawing pad,’ says Michelle. ‘He painted a bay we had visited, with the sky, sea and boats on the water. For the rest of the holiday he painted. ‘The pictures were childlike, but with more detail than you expect from a child that age. ‘We assumed that when we got back home he would return to his toys, but it continued. ‘He filled every spare moment of the day painting, and insisted on using artist quality materials.’ In the following months, his parents began to realise that Kieron’s talent was unusual. Baffled and quite at a loss to answer his questions about style and technique, they sought help from local galleries, who helped him to join local watercolour and oil painting classes. Unsurprisingly, he held his own alongside the adults.

 

A little parental encouragement: Kieron's parents spoke to local galleries, who helped him to join local watercolour and oil painting classes. In 2009 he held his first exhibition at a local gallery in Holt, aged only six

 

‘I just wanted to paint,’ says Kieron simply, with an appealing mix of shyness and self-assurance. He knows he is gifted but he isn’t one to boast. In 2009, one year after the trip to Cornwall, Kieron held his first exhibition at a local gallery in Holt. He was just six. Michelle and Keith are acutely sensitive to perceptions that they are ‘pushy’ parents who engineered that exhibition and the others that were to follow. They say they simply thought it would be a nice idea to put up a few of Kieron’s pictures in one of the art galleries for a local festival. When a local newspaper wrote about his wonderful pictures, a TV crew turned up at the door. Word spread — and suddenly there was a rush. All 19 were sold for between £200 and £1,500, earning Kieron £14,000. ‘It hadn’t even occurred to us that people would want to buy Kieron’s paintings,’ says Michelle. ‘It was unbelievable.’

Keith adds: ‘While the exhibition was on, a woman came into the gallery and asked to see Kieron’s paintings. She said she had worked in all the big galleries in London.
‘She took hold of one of Kieron’s pictures and became very emotional. She said: “He’s an Old Master returned.” It was very affecting.’ Mini Monet was born.

Kieron at work on the Norfolk broads: He gave up toys when he discovered art and has no interest in computer games. He even owns a house in Ludham, Norfolk, in which he plans to build a studio when he is older

Kieron paints landscapes, seascapes, fishing scenes, city scenes. He particularly likes rustic scenes, and laments that scenes of old barns and suchlike executed by Edward Seago are so hard to come across. Indeed, there is something about Kieron that seems to belong to another, gentler world. At his second exhibition at another local gallery later in 2009, 16 of his pictures sold for £17,000 in just 14 minutes at a phone auction. ‘We really had no idea what would happen — whether the first auction was a one-off and that no one would buy the pictures second time round,’ says Michelle. ‘Things went a bit crazy.’ Keith says that as Kieron’s painting made quantum leap after quantum leap, there was never any pressure on him to paint. ‘Kieron paints when he wants to. The only pressure he gets from us is to do his homework. ‘He will paint for weeks and then stop for weeks. As far as we’re concerned, during those dry periods, if he doesn’t pick up a paintbrush ever again, that’s absolutely fine. Kieron dictates the pace.’And it is hard to keep up. To date, Kieron has created more than 1,000 paintings. In his studio, he talks me through the process.
‘I usually paint in the mornings,’ he says. ‘It takes between two-and-a-half hours and four hours to do one picture. There’s no plan as such as to what I’ll paint next. I take a photograph and work from that. ‘I like to draw faces with character. Sometimes I’ll get bored or unhappy with a painting and I won’t finish it. I wasn’t happy with the trees on this one (he gestures at the picture of the bluebell wood), but I think I’ve got it right now.’

Moody: Kieron paints landscapes, seascapes, fishing scenes, city scenes. He particularly likes rustic scenes, and laments that scenes of old barns and suchlike executed by Edward Seago are so hard to come across

Kieron's father says that as his son's painting improved in quantum leaps, there was never any pressure on him to paint. 'Kieron paints when he wants to. The only pressure he gets from us is to do his homework,' he said

By 2010, aged seven, Kieron’s reputation had spread worldwide. In July 2010, an exhibition of 33 oils, watercolours and pastels sold within half an hour for £150,000. Collectors phoned in bids from Tokyo, Canada and Germany. Then, in November 2011, Kieron made £106,260 when a dozen paintings sold in ten minutes and 50 seconds. Last July, he sold 24 paintings for £250,000. ‘We were very worried about the responsibility placed on Kieron’s shoulders as this so-called Mini Monet,’ says Michelle. 'Keith and I were very stressed. ‘Keith was getting palpitations from the stress of it all.  ‘For us it was an ethical dilemma, but Kieron wanted it — he was very clear about that.’ To ensure Kieron, who turns 11 next month, has no pressure placed on him, his parents stipulate that he won’t take commissions; nor will an exhibition be organised until Kieron has actually produced the paintings to fill it.
‘There is no timeline, nothing to work to,’ says Keith. ‘If he paints he paints; if he doesn’t he doesn’t.’

'I usually paint in the mornings': To date, Kieron has created more than 1,000 paintings

Sought after: Michelle says Kieron¿s earnings have been a mixed blessing for the family

 

At the sale 12 days ago, which made Kieron £242,000, the pictures sold for between £2,450 for a small watercolour to £30,000 for a winter snow scene near his home in Norfolk. And just last Friday, another 12 went under the hammer, taking that figure of £242,000 up to £400,000. Michelle says Kieron’s earnings have been a mixed blessing for the family. ‘For some reason, people treat you differently when they see you apparently earning big sums. ‘Though we’ve had some incredible support along the way, we’ve also lost friends. People stop calling you. They perceive you differently. But we haven’t changed. ‘It’s Kieron’s money, not mine or Keith’s. We live modestly. But sometimes when we’re out and about and people recognise Kieron, I feel as if I’ve got two heads. We’ve lost our anonymity.‘And the pressure does get to you. We have to make decisions, about Kieron’s finances for example, that no one understands. ‘We haven’t yet got the work/life balance right. We haven’t been on holiday since 2010 because it’s been so relentless.’

The artist at work in his studio: Kieron works in a room in his parents' house, next door to the kitchen

At home, Michelle explains, she and Keith try to create a normal environment for Kieron. ‘That’s when we’re happiest,’ she says. ‘When we’re at home and there’s no attention on Kieron and we can just be ourselves. ‘Billie-Jo idolises Kieron and teases him — she calls him The Golden Child. She is artistic as well, but she is more “normal”, if you like.’ Kieron’s parents’ most recent ethical dilemma has been a decision on his schooling. Last week was his final week at primary school. In September, instead of going on to secondary school, his parents have decided he will be home-schooled. ‘We’ve had criticism about that, with people saying: “Give the boy a childhood,” ’ says Keith. ‘But we’re worried that Kieron will be singled out, picked on, treated differently.

‘I want to carry on painting. I don’t think I’ll go to university, but if I do it will be to study architecture. I also want to be a writer’    Kieron on his future

‘And home schooling will give him the flexibility to carry on painting, which is what he wants to do. He’ll join the local football team — he’ll have friends.‘And if it doesn’t work, then we’ll send him to school.’ And how does Mini Monet see his future working out? ‘I want to carry on painting. I don’t think I’ll go to university, but if I do it will be to study architecture. I also want to be a writer.’ Next month, the family are going on a much-needed holiday, returning to Cornwall, to the place where it all began for Kieron. He says he is looking forward to painting the coves and the fishing scenes. ‘Something happened there, but I don’t know quite what,’ says Michelle. ‘I’m hoping we’ll find out — and perhaps then we’ll be able to make sense of it all.’

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