Opinion | Dafen, village of fake masterpieces, sees fortunes revived thanks to local newly rich

Overseas buyers of copied Western oil paintings will be disappointed to learn that dirt-cheap Van Gogh and Monet knock-offs no longer line studio walls of Shenzhen's famed village of Dafen, the former world capital of mass-produced works of art and imitation masterpieces.

Dafen, home to more than 1,200 galleries crammed into less than half a square kilometre in a few tightly packed suburban blocks in the city's northeast, has undergone an artistic revolution.

Six years ago, one could barely move amid replicas of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Monet's Sunrise and Garden series, while streams of overseas traders combed the village to source and export an estimated 60 per cent of the world's replica oil paintings.

Today, in their place, are works with a distinctly local flavour, done in various styles of oils, washes and inks, and even original works of rising Chinese artists. Also distinctly local are the buyers too, among them property owners with a developing eye for art, and hotel owners needing to decorate some walls.

"Before the 2008 global financial crisis, more than 90 per cent of Dafen's reproduced paintings were sold for export, mostly to Europe and North America. Now exports of oil paintings have dropped to less than a third of the total," said Huang Tong, head of the Huang Jiang Oil Painting Company which owns dozens of galleries in Dafen.

"Export markets are no longer profitable. A replica of a simple landscape oil painting sold for 70 or 80 yuan in 2007. Now American clients still only want to pay us 70 or 80 yuan [HK$101]. But, in the meantime, our costs have soared. We only paid painters 20 yuan for such a work in 2007. Now we must pay at least 150 yuan. And our rents are skyrocketing.

"Every gallery in Dafen has had to adjust. Now the expanding domestic market is our priority," Huang said.