Dafen Copyists CityChina

Welcome to Dafen, a small suburb of Shenzhen city in China, located 30 km. Hong Kong. A neighborhood where more than 10,000 artists who regularly make copies of pictures for everyone.

Here, artists chosen from among the best students from the School of Fine Arts in China produce about 5 million paintings a year, 70% of all sold on the planet.

A large bronze sculpture a hand holding a brush we receive, before crossing a barrier that leads to this former fishing village turned into the greatest pictorial center.

A fence surrounds the five square miles of Dafen, his half-dozen European-style cobblestone streets, the 800 Galer as counterfeit art and glamorous cafes. A 'factory' with thousands of shops where you can order for about U.S. $ 35 replicas of Picasso, Leonardo, Raphael, Van Gogh, Miro, Renoir or any artist known.

So thriving industry has generated complaints from many artists. For that recently the Chinese government has banned the galleries sell copies living artists and works of painters who died less than 70 years. A rule that for a few dollars but can be avoided.

The founder of this "City of Painters " was Huang Jiang, a clever entrepreneur who llegoa Dafen in 1989 looking for a quiet place to meet large orders of thousands of pictures that made him the American department stores such as Wal-Mart.

Son of an art teacher, began painting commissioned by European millionaires. At first it took a couple of days painting, which sold for two euros. After getting finalize expertise gained in one hour.

Huang has made about 12 pictures a day for over 20 years, the for a total of more than 100,000 paintings, the author may well be more prol traffic history.

Now, in this great 'factory' each painter made about 30 copies a day, with systems of 'manufacture' chain, where each artist specializes in a part of a particular painting.

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