What she was selling
The product had a name and a price. Anisimow's living paintings put a commissioning subject inside a scene worked in the style of the Impressionists, Monet and Degas being the two the coverage names, so that the buyer appears within a picture that reads as nineteenth-century French painting. CNBC reported prices of $2,500 to $5,000 a canvas in May 2018, and about $35,000 earned in total.
My Modern Met interviewed her a month later, in June 2018, under the description of an extraordinary 11-year-old child prodigy painting and selling living art. Between the two pieces the basic commercial facts are consistent: a child with a commission list, working at adult prices.
How it started
The timeline in the reporting is short and specific. She began selling art at seven. The first living painting sold when she was nine. By 11 the format had a market and a price band.
The studio was a garage. That detail, repeated in the coverage, is the one that fixes the scale of the operation: no gallery representation is described, no dealer, no studio assistants. A family house in Los Angeles, a converted space, and a queue of buyers.
Why the story travelled
Child artists are not rare. Child artists with an invoice book are. The reason CNBC's business desk ran the story, rather than an arts page, is that Anisimow was a working supplier at 11: a defined product, a repeatable format, a price, and a documented revenue figure.
The work also drew the label prodigy, which the press applies loosely. Anisimow is cited as an example on Wikipedia's page about child art, which is a measure of how the case is used in general discussion of children who paint rather than a claim about her ranking among them.
Where Elisabeth Anisimow is now
The sources here stop in 2018. At that point her stated ambition was to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Whether she did, where she studied, and whether she still paints commercially are not recorded in this file.
Eight years have passed since the last dated report gathered here. Anyone writing that she is now a famous painter, or that she has stopped, is going beyond the record. The honest position is that her career after the age of 11 is undocumented in these sources.
What is documented and what is not
Documented: the price range of $2,500 to $5,000, the approximate $35,000 total, the living paintings format and its Impressionist reference points, the start of selling at seven, the first living painting sold at nine, the garage studio, the Los Angeles base and the stated Sorbonne ambition. All of it dates from 2018.
Not documented here: her date of birth, her family names, her schooling, any gallery show, any later sale, and any figure for total career earnings. The birth year on this page is an estimate from her reported age of 11 in May 2018.
Watch: Elisabeth Anisimow on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audrey Zhang | United States | Doodle 4 Google 2014 national winner | Age 9 |
| Elisabeth Anisimow | United States | Living paintings sold at 11 for $2,500-$5,000 each | Age 11 |
| Carmel Bechler | Israel | Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 | Age 16 |
| Andrea Dominizi | Italy | A beetle in the corner of the frame, logging machinery behind it, and a wo | Age 17 |
| Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas | Germany | Winning Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- CNBC reported sales at $2,500-$5,000 per painting and about $35,000 total, May 2018
- Aged 11 at the time; began selling art at seven
- First living painting sold at nine; worked from the family garage in Los Angeles
- My Modern Met published an interview in June 2018
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Exact date of birth is not published; the birth year here is an estimate
- No documented activity after 2018, including whether she studied at the Sorbonne
- No information on family, schooling or later earnings
Questions people ask about Elisabeth Anisimow
How old is Elisabeth Anisimow?
She was 11 when CNBC reported on her work in May 2018. Her date of birth is not published in these sources.
What is a living painting?
Her term for a portrait that places a real person inside a scene painted in the manner of Impressionists such as Monet and Degas.
How much did her paintings sell for?
CNBC reported $2,500 to $5,000 each, and about $35,000 earned in total by May 2018.
When did she start selling art?
At seven, according to the 2018 coverage. Her first living painting sold when she was nine.
Where is Elisabeth Anisimow now?
No source used here records anything after 2018, when she said she hoped to study at the Sorbonne.
Is Elisabeth Anisimow on Wikipedia?
She has no article of her own in this record, but is cited as an example on Wikipedia's page about child art.
Does she have a gallery?
No gallery representation is described in these sources; the reporting describes a garage studio in Los Angeles.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Elisabeth’s story?
What did Elisabeth Anisimow call her paintings?
What price range did CNBC report in 2018?
Where was her studio?
Sources
- This 11-year-old sells her 'living paintings' for thousands of dollars — CNBC Make It, 2018-05-18
- Interview: Extraordinary 11-Year-Old Child Prodigy Paints and Sells 'Living Art' — My Modern Met, 2018-06-14
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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