Brush with Greatness

Vanities

Fifth-grader ALEXANDRA NECHITA is yet another tiny, gifted girl from Romania who has an entourage of adults. She too wears slippers when she works. But forget the gym—Nechita is a painter. The press has dubbed her Pint-Size Picasso, Petite Picasso, -Year-Old Picasso. You get the PicassotThis month the International Art Galleries in Costa Mesa,

California, features Nechita's 19th solo exhibition, and Longstreet Press publishes a book of her paintings, Outside the Lines. Something of a savant, Nechita paints on canvases so big she has to stand on a stool to reach the top, surrounded, she says, "by angelsfand Jesus." Her works promote peace with a lexicon of doves and lambs^the Nechita family

moved to Los Angeles when Alexandra was two),pnd heroes include the Pope and Ellen DeGeneres ("She's buying one of my paintings"). As for prices, college is paid for.

LAURA JACOBS

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