Schoolboy made $2,200,000 in 20 minutes

An elementary art school student became rich by $2.2 million after the paintings he painted were sold out at auction in just 20 minutes.

Ten-year-old Kieron Williamson, known as a “mini Monet,” gained international fame after painting a landscape at a family holiday party five years ago. Twenty-three of his works sold to Internet buyers for $360,000 in just 20 minutes.

Prices for paintings by the young genius range from $3,500 for a small watercolor to $30,000 for a winter landscape painted near his Norfolk home. 2Kiron’s first works appeared on the market in 2009. Then 19 of his paintings were sold for $ 36,000 at a private auction. The proceeds from the sale allowed Kieron to buy a new home for himself and his parents, as well as invest in works by other artists, such as English landscape painter Lawrence Stephen Lowry.

“Everyone in the art world thinks his work is much better than it was last year. The latest paintings he has painted are phenomenal. We’re not pushing him. He just paints when he wants to,” says 47-year-old art dealer Mark Williamson.

Gallery manager Adrian Hill, who oversaw the sales, said: “I’ve seen his skills grow from last year. He seems to have risen to a new level.”

Starting next year, Kieron will stop attending school and study at home so he can concentrate on painting. Another dozen of his paintings and watercolors will be for sale this Friday. Bidding will start at $150,000.

Kieron began painting when he was not even five. It happened at a family holiday in Devon and Cornwall in 2008. Most of his paintings depict landscapes of the area around Norfolk, where he has lived all his life, and Cornwall, which is his favorite vacation spot.

Among the admirers of the boy’s talent are not only the inhabitants of Foggy Albion. At recent auctions, his paintings were purchased by connoisseurs of painting from Europe, the United States, Japan and Canada. All proceeds from the sale of paintings are sent to his own company, Kieron Williamson Ltd, whose directors are his parents.