“He only paints when he’s having fun”

His “work” was spotted by an art gallery and since then, the craze has been such that an American buyer offered 295,000 euros for one of his paintings.

He is a young artist who lives in Bavaria, his name is Laurent Schwarz, he has just turned 3, wears diapers and is 95 centimeters tall, which is barely the size of his paintings. In the studio that his parents set up for him, under the roof, the young artist paints dinosaurs, human silhouettes, dragons or baby elephants, his favorite motifs. His style: lots of colors. The genre: rather abstract. Laurent creates an average of one painting every two to three days and 25 have already been sold, most of them between 10,000 and 15,000 euros.

Some people buy “blindly” without knowing what work they will receive. According to Laurent’s mother, 20,000 people are on the waiting list. A few months ago, his mother posted photos of her son’s work on social media, which had been spotted by an art gallery. The machine then started up, also skillfully fueled by Laurent’s family, who launched an Instagram account.

The craze is such that an American buyer offered 295,000 euros for the little boy’s first painting, which the mother does not want to sell. For another painting, called The Peoplethe family received more than 50,000 purchase offers.

Laurent and his parents receive hundreds of letters and postcards every week. And on the market square of the village where the family lives, fans regularly wait to meet and photograph the prodigy.

Some people wonder about this early maturity and the same questions often come up. Is Laurent a painting genius? Or is it a marketing phenomenon concocted by his parents? Lisa Schwarz, the mother, defends herself. “There are people who don’t understand and who say: the poor child… No. Laurent only paints when he’s having fun. At 6 o’clock, when I get up with him, the first thing he wants to do is go to his studio… He paints lightly, he enjoys it. And that’s all we want. Of course, we sell the paintings. But when Laurent is 18, he will have some starting capital to do what he wants. And then, maybe in two years, all that won’t interest Laurent at all. In that case, no problem. Just one click to close the Instagram account, and that’s it !”

Next week, an exhibition will be held in the family’s Bavarian village. 400 guests are expected to see the works of the boy who one American newspaper called “Picasso the size of a beer mug.”