Wednesday, October 28, 2009


STEPHEN WILTSHIRE / 
A BEAUTIFUL MEMORY @ PRATT

Unfortunately, when I tried to check out the show yesterday at Pratt, they had already closed down for the day. I saw a piece on the Early Show about Stephen, and I HAD TO MEET HIM.

Born in the UK, Stephen was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3, and was mute as a child. At the age of 9, he spoke his first word – paper – when teachers encouraged him to talk by taking away his art materials. Very early on, he showed a talent for drawing (cityscapes in particular). It soon was discovered that he had a photographic memory, for he could draw an entire city just after viewing it briefly. Every building and its relation to the surrounding ones, the number of windows in each building, architectural flourishes, plazas, streets, trees...e-v-e-r-y detail.

INCREDIBLE....

Now, at the age of 35, Stephen has traveled the world performing the feat of recording these panoramas: Tokyo, Rome, Hong Kong, London, Jerusalem, Dubai, Madrid, Frankfurt and now his last, New York. With pen and ink, he's drawing on an 18-foot-long surface, and can be viewed while he works until Friday, 10–5. 

By the way...the research he did to complete this task? A 45-minute helicopter ride over the city. 

I'm heading back there either tomorrow or Friday...this is NOT to be missed.

Check out more of his work here.
If you can't make it to the show, there's live streaming on CBS's site.
Lastly, view an interesting piece on him here.

No comments:

Post a Comment