Such famous artists as Michelangelo, Picasso, and Monet began their creative journey in childhood. Moreover, many of them created their first famous paintings before they were thirty years old.
Pablo Picasso, Picador, 1889.
Impressed by a bullfight, eight-year-old Pablo Picasso created his earliest surviving painting. The young artist painted from an early age. Many people also know his Portrait of his Mother, painted at the age of 13.
Michelangelo, “The Torture of St. Anthony,” 1487
By far the most expensive work of art created by a child. The earliest surviving work by Michelangelo. In July 2008 the painting was sold at an auction at Sotheby’s for 2 million dollars. At the time of the painting, the 12-year-old Michelangelo was studying in the studio of Domenico Ghirlandaio.
Salvador Dali, “Landscape near Figueres,” 1910
The 6-year-old Salvador painted this landscape on a postcard. The layer of oil paint is so thin that the postcard design figures show through the painting.
Paul Klee, Children’s Drawing of a Lady with an Umbrella 1873-1875.
One of the most prominent masters of the European avant-garde, after he had already graduated from art school, dissected his childhood sketches and picked out this particular pencil drawing. The artist systematically used this portrait, among others, created at the age of 4-6 years in his mature works, considering childish art especially valuable thanks to its sincerity and spontaneity.
Albrecht Dürer, self-portrait, 1484
Dürer’s work marked the formation of the Northern European self-portrait as an independent genre. The greatest master of the Western European Renaissance painted his first portrait while working in his father’s jewelry workshop and later studying under Michael Wolgemuth, the greatest artist of the time. Dürer created his self-portrait at the age of 13.