Masterpiece Art for Pennies

Van Goghs, Turners, Da Vincis and Klimts pour off the easels of China’s most unusual assembly line. The owner of New Century Oil Painting is in high spirits. She is sure they cannot find better value for money than in her shop in a grimy corner of the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. More than 8,000 painters are crowded into the tenements of the Dafen Oil Painting Village. Some are trained artists, others are young peasants who paint by numbers and turn out Van Gogh’s Sunflowers by the score. Hundreds of Van Goghs hanging out to dry along with the washing and wind-dried pork at the workshop of Zhang Zhenhai. For the full story - click the title Irish Art