Autism can confer gifts as well as troubling comorbidities sometimes. Thats a message thats frequently overlooked when people talk about hell/abyss/misery/nightmare of autism.
Christophe Pillault, Olivet, France, was born in Iran in 1982. An autistic savant, he is unable to talk, walk or feed himself. He discovered painting, using his hands though unable to use his fingers functionally. He began painting in 1993. His capacities were discovered by his special education teacher and then encouraged by his mother. Christophe does not talk but expresses himself through his paintings. A singular figure in art, he paints with his hands and uses acrylic on paper, canvas and cardboard.
Here’s a link that contains a couple of examples of his work. Speaking as someone who works in a field that tries to express ideas and concepts through visual means I can only say how very good these are technically. Speaking as a human being with a capacity to appreciate art, I hope we can all see the beauty in what Pillaut sees.
The youngest of three children, Ping Lian has very limited communication and social skills and lives in a world of his own.
Once again, the sheer quality of the work is breathtaking. Lian’s savant syndrome has given him the gift of being able to perceive a level of detail that is far beyond most of us. Here’s some of his work.
Richard was born in 1952. When he was three years old his parents were told that he was moderately to severely retarded. He also showed considerable autistic behavior with the characteristic obsession for sameness, withdrawal, walking in circles, spinning objects endlessly, and a preoccupation with the piano striking a single key for hours at a time. He did not have useful language until the age of 11.
I think Wawro’s work is my favourite. The richness and depth of colour is so good. I hope to be able to buy some his work one day – if only in print form.
All these artists are being showcased at a New York exhibition. Lucky NY is what I say.
Nobody here seems trapped in a hell/nightmare/whatever. All I can see are talented artists whos savant syndrome has helped take their skills to very high levels indeed. The world would be a much more drab and poor place without them.
Left Brain Right Brain 
I think it’s important to point out that there are people in the who are (rightfully, IMO) sensitive to the idea of hierarchy among autistics; so-called “savants” are a small subset of the autistic population, but we all have strengths and gifts. This is not meant as a criticism, Kev, but you should be aware of the discussions. “This”:http://ballastexistenz.blogspot.com/2005/12/hierarchies-in-autistic-community.html is a good starting point.
Hi Dave,
I’ve read Joel Smiths piece before and AB’s but Lisa JC’s was new to me so thanks for that.
I have to admit my continued ignorance though and say I’m not sure why what I wrote might be percieved as hierarchical – I’m certainly not saying that autistics who are also savants are better or worse than non-savants, just that in these three cases, they’re better artists.
There are examples of Pillaut’s work and Wawro’s work at the MIND institute. Both of the pieces are excellent, not, “excellent for a handicapped person, ” but excellent. The MIND has a nice collection of work of autistic children and adults, not all of it is “savant” work, some of it is just good art for the age of the artist.
This piece by Pillaut is on paper and the image is about 13 inches tall the whole piece is about 16 by 22 maybe. This photo chops off the bottom of the image, which is pretty disrespectful, if you ask me, but it’s nice that they have a close up of it.
This is one of my favorites
It’s by Johnathan Lehrman.
Work was submitted to the MIND and selected by a “jury” process, one of the jurors is one of my favorite artists, he happens to be a professor at UCD, though he’s mostly retired he still teaches… his name is Wayne Thiebaud (tee-bo). Thiebaut has a nice emphasis on painting things that are line up in rows and sort of imitated spatial processing errors.
http://www.sjmusart.org/content/collection/highlights/drawings/item_infoDetail.phtml?itemID=54&typeID=drawings
http://www.phillipscollection.org/american_art/artwork/Thiebaud-Five_Rows_Glasses+.htm
That’s a San Francisco “landscape” notice the street is vertical next to the sort of Chinatownesque building. I love it.
I haven’t spoken with Professor Thiebaud, but off hand I would say he isn’t on the autism spectrum, for some reason his work doesn’t seem to suffer for that.
I think to some extent, savantism is in the eye of the beholder, but it is also a real phenomenon if you define it as exceptional talent from someone that the culture otherwise would say is a “loss.”
Bernie Rimland’s son has 2 pieces there. Rimland’s stuff is good, but I don’t think it’s really great. There are two pieces by a guy who draws buildings. He tapes standard typing paper sized paper (I think it is typing paper) together and builds these larger sheets of paper that way, there are tall NY buildings drawn on paper that are about 4 feet by 3 feet. It’s hard to explain how subtle the artist is at connecting the pieces of paper, you almost don’t notice the “seams”. If I did it it would be sloppy looking. There’s one sort of comic-like thing that was done by an older man, like 70 years old. I think he has an Asperger’s dx. It’s his perseveration about some period in history with lots of interesting and humorous writing along with the drawings. It’s about 30 inches by 20 inches. (sorry I forget the rest of the world is on the metric system)
Thanks for this article, Kevin.
Kev, sorry that I was unclear. I wasn’t saying that you were being hierarchical; these artists deserve our appreciation and support. I guess I just wanted to add a little addendum to emphasize that the “hell/abyss/misery/nightmare” metaphor is a myth created by by non-autistics based on the fact that “it is difficult to share or fully understand someone else’s subjective experience”:http//http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/.
Whoops, somehow I messed up that link. I meant to point to http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/
My own particular autistic pride is in my son. He is autistic and I am not. He has faced prejudice and misunderstanding. He does not have any savant skills. He is a deeply moral person. He is making something of his life. I am very proud of him and I love him dearly. My life would have been easier without the challenges his autism brought along. But it would have been a lesser life. I cannot speak for him.
Ah – OK Dave, I get you, sorry about that.
No problem, Kev!
Thanks for this Kev. I always enjoy good art whether the artist is on the spectrum or not. Can you point me to some good NT artists? There must be a few out there 😉
clone3g – my greatest love of artists is Chagall – the symbolism in his work fascinates me and it’s the only purely visual art that I really and truly enjoy looking at.
Kev – do you think there are autists who are ‘gifted’ but who are not savant? I would not describe myself as savant, I think, certainly I am not like savants are usually described, but there are things I am veryvery good at – not to the extent of say Temple Grandin, but enough to attract the ‘g word’ at school and things like that.
Becca – definitely. There was a little boy in the UK fairly recently who was autistic and whos charcoal work was fantastic. The article (which I can’t find anywhere unfortunately!) didn’t mention savant syndrome at all.
This art is great, so much better than much of what we see done by neurotypicals. It would be great if this art not only brought him joy, but $$$$ that helped make each day easier.
Hi Robert
I agree that autistics should be rewarded for their art. But I do remember a story that Gary Mesibov told at a TEACCH seminar 10 years ago. There was a gifted artist, autistic of course, who did make money from her art. But her ability seemed effortless to her. It was just something she did. What really pleased her was the pay cheque she picked up for a fairly menial job. That job was hard for her and she felt that she had really “earned” her wages. Whereas the money for her paintings was easy money that did not bring the same satisfaction. Most people would dream of being paid for something they enjoyed and being able to give up the day job. Not her.
As an artist, I’d just like to add that one reason that artists need to be paid for their work is so that they can afford the materials and so (some of them) don’t have to support themselves at menial jobs that take away prime hours for creating.
I understand the poing of the woman who needed her day job to feel accomplishment, but some artists get tremendous feelings of accomplishment from doing their art and for them its sad that they can’t afford a space, the materials or the time to do their art. You can do some art just about anywhere, but lots of it really requires a studio space… which can be something simple, but perhaps can’t be found in a particular home or apartment.
Autistics might make great potters or welders of metal art, but if the only thing they can afford is paper and charcoal, or canvas and paint, they aren’t exploring the other media.
I’d love to have a place to do silkscreen, but that’s a pretty heavy duty set up actually. I’d love to work with concrete and metal, too, but that’s not happening any time soon.
Which is not to say that I’m a savant artist. I’m definitely not.
Ms Clark,
I take your point completely. Larry Arnold is another talented autistic attempting to make it in the world of video and DVD production.
http://www.larry-arnold.info/Video/index.htm
He could do with some time and money to pursue his art.
“It’s a curious phenomenon that whatever you can do easily, you think must be just as easy for other people. So you fail to appreciate your own gifts.”
~Linda Kreger Silverman
I remember as a teenager wanting to pursue several career options, to which my mother said, “Oh you don’t want to do that.” (Boy, it gets really confusing when people keep re-defining your reality for you.) I was then pushed into bookkeeping & data entry jobs, despite my difficulties with number periodic number reversals and barely-passing grades in typing and bookkeeping classes. The idea that a job could be something you love was a nearly alien concept. “It’s WORK — it’s not supposed to be fun!” was the party line. What a load of manure.
“To love what you do, and feel that it matters – how could anything be more fun?â€
~Katharine Graham
The world has a very warped, Puritan definition of “work” that does nothing to improve life for anyone. Producing good art is no less of a job than bussing tables or whatever!
andrea
I was looking for more people to relate to with autism. My 8yr daughter has autism. And I was thinking about help with web designing. Looks like I have the best of both worlds. I’ll enjoy reading your post.