Stephen Wiltshire

• Birthday: 24.04.1974 of the year
• Age.: 42 years
• Place of birth: London, UK
• Citizenship: United Kingdom

Biography

A British artist who was diagnosed with autism as a child. He is known for his phenomenal memory – Stephen can recreate city views in detail, even if he has seen them only once.

Stephen Wiltshire was born in 1974 in the British capital of London, England. When he was three years old, his father died in a motorcycle accident. By the way, 3-year-old Stephen still did not speak – it was then that he was first called autistic. However, he still communicated with the world around him – with the help of pictures.

At the age of five, Stephen was sent to the Queensmill School in London, where his talent for drawing became apparent. Teachers encouraged Stephen to draw in every possible way, as it was the only chance to communicate with the strange boy. By the age of eight, cars and cityscapes began to appear in his drawings. By the time he was ten, his teachers noticed that his drawings could well serve as maps – young Stephen did not miss a single detail in the cityscapes, he reproduced everything he saw with photographic accuracy. By the way, it was his passion for drawing that teachers at school used to make the boy talk. For example, he was not given paper until Stephen said: ‘paper’. This is how he eventually got used to communicating with words – Stephen finally spoke by the age of nine.

In 1987, Wiltshire became a participant in the BBC program ‘The Foolish Wise Ones’, and in the same year his collection of drawings entitled ‘Drawings’ was published.

Stephen graduated from the City and Guilds of London Art School in 1998.

Having looked at something only once, Steven is able to memorize it in the smallest detail, and this applies even to panoramic views of huge megacities. So, after a short flight over a new city in a helicopter, Wiltshire easily recreates the entire panorama.

He painted the 5.7-meter-high view of New York after a 20-minute flight over the city.

Books of Wiltshire’s drawings invariably become bestsellers – people are interested to see with their own eyes the creations of such an unusual artist. In addition to ‘Drawings’, at an early age he published the books ‘Cities’ (1989), ‘Floating Cities’ (1991), ‘Stephen Wiltshire’s American Dream’

(1993). His third book, Floating Cities, became a Sunday Times bestseller.

In 2003, a retrospective exhibition of Stephen Wiltshire’s works opened at the Twickenham Gallery in London.

In May 2005, Wiltshire again made people talk about him after he recreated the panorama of the city on a 10-meter sheet after flying in a helicopter over the Japanese capital Tokyo.

In general, Wiltshire has already painted Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem, his native London, and many other cities. Surprisingly, Stephen’s drawings take into account such details as the number of columns on buildings, the number of steps and other small details.

In 2010, he made a series of drawings of Sydney, and in the same year his painting ‘Times Square at Night’ was sold at the famous Christie’s auction.

In September 2010, he made a series of drawings of Shanghai, China, and in 2011 he began a huge project – a 76-meter-long panorama of New York City. By the way, this work can be seen on a huge billboard at JFK Airport.

In general, Stephen Wiltshire has already been recognized as one of the most talented artists of our time. He has repeatedly become a hero of TV programs and shows, and for his services in the field of art he became a member of the Order of the British Empire.

Surprisingly, it turned out that his talent for drawing was not his only talent. As it turned out, he has an absolute ear for music and can reproduce entire pieces of music from memory. For example, once he heard Carmen on TV, he easily sang several arias from the opera. This feature of his literally amazed the researchers, because usually autistic people have only one talent.

Wiltshire’s paintings are exhibited in many world galleries, and you can see his amazing creations on the Internet on his official website.

One of his most recent works, ‘Globe of Imagination’, was particularly impressive – cityscapes grow in his painting right on the globe.