news- autistic man opens his own art gallery
X. Rayburn
By Louise Jury
The Independent [UK]
Published: 28 October 2006
An artist who overcame severe autism to win international
recognition has opened his own gallery, where he will be
resident three days a week.
The Stephen Wiltshire Gallery at the Royal Opera Arcade in
Pall Mall, London, will be dedicated to the work of the
artist who came to public attention 19 years ago when he
appeared in the television documentary, The Foolish Wise
Ones.
He astonished observers with his capacity to draw
exceptionally accurate pictures of buildings and scenes
after just one look. He once produced a view of central
London after a helicopter ride overhead. Wiltshire was born
to West Indian parents in London in 1974. He was mute as a
child and diagnosed as autistic, but when he started school,
he expressed an interest in drawing. Art became his means of
communication, and he began to draw imaginary landscapes and
cars.
After Wiltshire's burst of fame, Sir Hugh Casson, the late
president of the Royal Academy, introduced the boy to his
agent.
"I've never seen in all my competition drawing such a
talent, such a natural and extraordinary talent, that this
child seems to have... [Stephen] is possibly the best child
artist in Britain," Sir Hugh said in the introduction to
Drawings, the artist's first book.
Wiltshire was taken on trips all over the world and a trust
was established to manage the fees and royalties from his
work.
He has appeared in many documentaries as an example of an
"autistic savant," one of a handful whose autism goes
hand-in-hand with prodigious skills, and three years ago a
major retrospective of his work was mounted in Twickenham,
London. He was made an MBE in 2003.
Oliver Sacks, the neurologist whose work became famous
through the film Awakenings, profiled Wiltshire in his book,
An Anthropologist on Mars.
He described tourists watching him work in Red Square,
Moscow. "They saw a funny little boy, on a little stool,
pretending to draw ... and then, as the Spassky Tower began
to take shape, as Stephen's masterly draughtsmanship and
grasp of perspective became manifest, as the first outline
was filled with rich, confident detail, they ceased to be
desultory, they were arrested, they stopped in wonder..." he
said.
Annette Wiltshire, Stephen's sister, said they thought it
was time he had his own gallery and he was very proud of it.
"He comes three days a week and he sits and does his
drawings and sometimes paintings or commissioned work. He
loves the fact that people come in and greet him and praise
him," she said.
"As a family, we're quite protective and we would never have
Stephen do anything he doesn't want to do. But he handles
the public so well."
original URL:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1935985.ece
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Jean B.
site:
http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/
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Jean B.