Three-year-old German 'mini-Picasso' makes splash in art world

NEUBEUERN, Germany — Three-year-old Laurent Schwarz may still be wearing nappies but his paintings have earned him social media fame and the nickname of Germany's "mini-Picasso".

In a studio his parents have set up at their home in the Bavarian town of Neubeuern, the toddler has been busy creating splashy artworks, often several times bigger than he is.

When he is not playing with his dinosaur toys, he likes to liberally apply acrylic paint to canvas with brushes, rollers or just his fingers to create riotously abstract pieces.

His parents said his works have attracted the eye of art lovers and galleries and fetched high prices. They insisted it was Laurent's artistic passion that has fuelled the art world hype, media interest and his very early brush with fame.

His 33-year-old mother Lisa Schwarz told AFP that the family discovered Laurent's love for painting on a family holiday last year, at a hotel which had a studio.

"When we got home, Laurent just wanted to paint -- paint, paint, paint, the whole time," she said.

She and her husband Philipp bought him some canvases, brushes and paint, and it was not long before family and friends were clamouring to see the prodigy's work.

They set up an Instagram account to share images of his work more easily and said they were soon bowled over by the response.

"Within four weeks we had got 10,000 followers," said Lisa, with enquiries from galleries following soon after, and interest from newspapers in Germany and abroad which quickly dubbed him the "mini-Picasso".

The Instagram account now has 90,000 followers and at a sale of Laurent's work in September buyers from around the world showed interest, according to his parents.

They said some works have sold for hundreds of thousands of euros, but declined to divulge details on sales and buyers.

'Always painting' 

Laurent is not the first child artist to capture the public's imagination.

In 2022 for example, 10-year-old American Andres Valencia sold his Picasso-influenced works for several hundred thousand dollars.

In the late 1990s, Romanian-American artist Alexandra Nechita also drew comparisons with the Spanish master at the tender age of 12.

Laurent's parents said they are still surprised at the reaction to their son's work.

While at the moment "almost everything has been sold", Laurent "is always painting new ones", said Philipp, 43.

"There are pictures that we don't sell, for example his first work or ones that he particularly likes," he explained.

Laurent's parents said they are keeping the money paid for his work in an account in his name which he will be able to access when he is an adult.

"He can study painting, buy a car, play an instrument, play football... It's up to him to choose," said Philipp, 43.

"The important thing for us is that he's happy."