Marla Olmstead

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Marla Olmstead (born 2000 in Binghamton, New York) is an artist of abstract art. By 2004 she had attracted international media attention[1]. Her abstract pieces have been as large as five feet (1.52 m) square, hailed by critics[who?] as impressively complex, and have sold for tens of thousands of US dollars[1].

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[edit] Early stages

According to her family—Olmstead began painting just before her second birthday in early 2002 when her father, Mark, gave her paint to divert her from distracting him from his own painting. Mark painted for a very brief period after his father died, and has no proclamations of being an artist of any variety.[2] Eventually, her work was on display at a local coffee shop. Soon after a customer bought one of the paintings for $250, a local gallery owner was shown one of her works and eventually organized a show at his gallery. From that point forward, paintings attributed to Olmstead began to sell frequently.[3]

[edit] Success and media attention

The popularity of work attributed to her took off after her first gallery showing, with many of the paintings selling for tens of thousands of US dollars.

To many critics, what is most impressive about her work is her ability to paint in layers and to fill the canvas, instead of painting in one layer and leaving most of the canvas blank, like other four-year olds. Her skill is so great that critics and media alike have drawn comparisons to abstract artists Wassily Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock.[2] She has attracted media attention from The New York Times, Time magazine, CBS news, and BBC News.

[edit] Controversy

In February 2005, a report by CBS News' 60 Minutes II raised questions. 60 Minutes enlisted the help of Ellen Winner, a child psychologist who studies cognition in the arts and gifted children. Winner was impressed with Marla's work and indicated that Marla was the first child prodigy she'd seen paint abstractly. The Olmsteads agreed to permit CBS crews to set-up a hidden camera in their home to tape their daughter painting a single piece in five hours over the course of a month. When Winner reviewed the tapes, the psychologist said, "I saw no evidence that she was a child prodigy in painting. I saw a normal, charming, adorable child painting the way preschool children paint, except that she had a coach that kept her going." Winner also indicated that the painting created before CBS's hidden camera looked "less polished than some of Marla's previous works."[4]

The 2007 documentary My Kid Could Paint That, by director Amir Bar-Lev, examines Marla Olmstead, her family, and the controversy surrounding the art attributed to her. Bar-Lev's documentary is intentionally left open-ended. It includes excerpts from start-to-finish videos of two of Marla's works and questions whether the two works, the 60 Minutes painting and Ocean, are of the same quality as other works attributed to her.

One question that remains unaddressed in Bar-Lev's documentary is the value of the work itself regardless of the authorship.

[edit] Present

Despite the negative publicity, Olmstead's work remains in demand and the same painting that Marla unwittingly created before a hidden camera sold for $9,000. Her paintings can be seen on her website at http://www.marlaolmstead.com.

As of October 2007, the Olmsteads' own website offered excerpts from start-to-finish videos of three more works by her, "Fairy Map", "Rabbit" and, "Colorful Rain." According to the website, the full versions of the videos are available to collectors and the press. The videos employ the jump-cut technique, meaning that the scene (a shot of the canvas on which Marla paints) is generally continuous, but that the action stops and then starts again with the subject (Marla) having shifted position relative to the video frame. As of March 2008, two of the three works featured in the videos, "Rabbit," and "Colorful Rain," remain unsold.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b My Kid Could Paint That [1] , Film, Dir: Amir Bar-Lev, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Child art prodigy wows New York BBC News, 29 September, 2004.
  3. ^ A Portrait Of the Artist As a Young Girl; Early Ability on Abstracts: 4-Year-Old Paints With Flair The New York Times Michelle York. September 28, 2004.
  4. ^ New Questions About Child Prodigy from 60 Minutes II

[edit] External links