When Autumn de Forest was five years old, she picked up a paintbrush for the first time. It wasn’t long before she was ready to show the world what she could do.

After a year of practice, the then-six-year-old asked her father if he could get her a booth at a local art-in-the-park program. “People would come up to the booth, and they would talk to my father, and they’d say, ‘This is great!’” she said. “Apparently they thought it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day.”

Almost everyone thought the artwork was her father’s. When they found out that tiny Autumn was the artist, people couldn’t believe their eyes.

When Autumn was eight, she was featured on the Discovery Health Channel. There was a slew of media attention in the years that followed. There was Disney. There was The Today Show. There was Wendy Williams. She was called a child genius, a prodigy, and an expert painter.

Suddenly, Autumn de Forest was everywhere.

Not everyone was convinced

But not everyone was so accepting of the young artist and her work. Some people in the art world had…questions. Sure, she was good for a kid. But was her art actually good? Others wondered if the whole thing might be an elaborate hoax.

Autumn ignored her critics and kept painting. By age 14, she developed a startlingly organized daily routine that went far beyond a 9 to 5.

Somehow, as........

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