Last updated at 8:09 PM on 28th September 2010
Modern icon: Autumn's Barbie Marilyn pays tribute to pop art master Andy Warhol
Meet Autumn de Forest who at just eight years old is the world's youngest conceptual artist.
She has been compared to past masters such as Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso and is talked about as one of the world's only authentic artistic child geniuses.
Offering up her work for auction since February of this year, Autumn has already raked in $200,000 and she has only been painting since she was five.
The young and assured artist's skill as a painter was only discovered by accident and during the past three years her range of styles has astonished as she moved effortless through expressionism to surrealism to modernism.
Churning out an incredible 60 works of art since the age of five, the young prodigy has just finished her latest masterpiece - a self portrait - which she believes is her best work to date.
'Autumn Colours is my best work so far,' said the child prodigy.
'I love it. Every time I come to see it I see something fresh and new in it. It is a renewable artwork to me.'
'Another work that I have painted is Tree of Hearts. That really speaks to me and makes me feel that I can fully express the metaphorical and layer my work properly.
"My inspiration is everywhere. In road signs, grocery signs, in my mother's magazines and on the television.'
'I am especially in love with old movies like Singing in The Rain or something a bit more modern like Titanic.'
Work in progress: Autumn with the half-completed Barbie Marilyn piece in her Las Vegas studio
'She asked if she could take some of the leftover plywood that was lying around and a brush and if she could dip it in the varnish to mess around.'
'So I left her to it, but when I turned around I could see what I could only describe as a modern art masterpiece in my eyes.'
Although her parents originally believed that Autumn would move into musical composition like her father, Doug and his actress wife Katherine decided to nurture what they saw as Autumn's incredible gift.
'I was made to play the violin every day since the age of four, so I knew that the most important thing was not to take the fun away from Autumn and her painting,' said Doug.
'So we purchased acrylic paints and some canvasses for Autumn to experiment on that were quite small at around one and half feet tall and just under two feet long.'
'As the year progressed Autumn must have produced around twenty pieces, each one that developed in tone and style.'
'By the end of the year, my wife and I had no choice but to provide Autumn with larger five feet by six feet canvases.'
Portrait of the artist as a young girl: Autumn at work
'By the time she was approaching her seventh birthday I thought it was time that maybe Autumn should display her work at local art fairs,' said Doug.
'She reminded us of the abstract art of Georgia O'Keefe and Willem de Kooning and in other ways of the pop art of Andy Warhol.'
'The attendees there were taken aback by the fact that the work was by an eight year old.'
'They assumed that she was just our daughter and that me or my wife had produced the work.'
'Eventually this took us to the Malibu Fine Arts Festival in LA and it was during this festival that I realised that I needed to get more help with Autumn.'
And here's one I prepared earlier: Autumn with a display of her work, including a self-portrait (lower left)
'Ben had the expertise to guide Autumn's career in a way that my wife and I couldn't,' said Doug.
'I want my daughter to be a young girl, but at the same time as long as she is happy I want her to fully explore her talents as naturally as possible and Ben seemed the right guy to do that.'
Spending up to four hours a day in her own studio in the de Forest family home in Las Vegas, Autumn still attends school just like any other eight year old.
'My favourite classes are history and science and of course my real passion is my painting,' said Autumn.
Mood music: Her parents thought at one point that she might follow her father into music, but Autumn's painting has gone from strength to strength. This piece sold for £15,800 at auction earlier this year.
'Although I do love animals and wouldn't mind being a vet.' Currently settling back into school after her summer holiday, Autumn and her parents are happy to see where her talent takes her.
'All this money means that her future is secure,' said Doug.
'That is one major plus point. Another is that my girl gets to express herself in a way that many children cant and I am so happy to be able to enable her to do that.'
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