Jonathan Lerman (born 1987) is an American

autistic savant Savant syndrome () is a rare condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrates certain abilities far in excess of average. The skills that savants excel at are generally related to memory. This may include rapid calc ...

outsider artist Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates e ...

. He was born in

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, NY, and currently resides in the upstate New York suburb of Vestal. He began to lapse into long silences at the age of two, and the next year he was diagnosed with

autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...

. His IQ is purported to be 53. His artistic bent appeared at the age of 10 years in the form of charcoal-drawn faces—both people he knows and those he imagines. In 1999, he had his own solo exhibition at the KS Art

gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (G ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. He has had personal exhibitions, and has also exhibited his work alongside others. He was also the subject of the

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

television program

True Life ''True Life'' is an American documentary television series that aired on MTV from March 31, 1998 to June 21, 2017. Each episode follows a particular topic, such as heroin addiction as in the first episode – "Fatal Dose". The show is created by ...

in the episode "True Life: I Have Autism" to describe his life as an autistic savant.

Books

*George Braziller. ''Jonathan Lerman: The Drawings of a Boy with Autism'' (2002)

Notes and references

* * ;Notes

External links

Exhibit at KS Arterstwhile "www.jonathanlerman.com" site
*(se

for a possible explanation of why that erstwhile site is now history)
Portraits of Emotion: The Story of an Autistic Savant
Documentary about Jonathan Lerman 1987 births 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists American male painters Painters from New York City Living people Outsider artists Artists from Queens, New York People from Vestal, New York Autistic savants Artists with autism American artists with disabilities 20th-century American male artists {{autism-stub