Chinese Copy Artists
Chinese Copy Art was the subject of a Sky Arts Channel documentary I have just watched. I watched this programme with mixed thoughts running through my head. The painting above is a Joe Hendry original oil painting from a few years ago. Well, it’s actually a verision of an original which I recreated for a customer who missed out on the original. I have also “copied” other paintings of my own, usually changing elements keeping each painting an original.
This documentary however started off by saying that these artists only painted the works of deceased masters such as Van Gogh, Rembrant, Monet etc. Sometimes four artists work on a conveyor belt of the same paintings, each painting their part, churning out De Lempika’s by the truck load. This can’t be right, can it?
These artist’s bring in a huge amount of income for their community, but they are selling their paintings for a pittance. Many of them, sadly, spoke of losing the need to create original art any more. They just wanted to earn money and “meet a demand”. The fact is, however, if they refused to do this, then they would kill the demand for what is, quite a kitch, tacky object. When I was an interior designer, I utterly hated anything which was wood effect. If it was plastic or metal, let it look like like plastic, not immitation wood. Similarly, if you want Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, why not by a top quality art print rather than a tacky imitation?
The thing that annoyed me most about these copy artists was the lies. At the start of the documentary one of them stated that they only copied deceased masters. During the documentary, a copy of Jack Vettriano’s “Singing Butler” was seen being worked on and as well we all know (perhaps apart from Chinese copy artists), Vettriano is alive and is still actively painting and selling his artwork.
The Chinese copy artists are no doubt competent technically however this means that no-one is safe and most of all, the customer is most at risk. If you are an art-buyer supporting the production of cheap art (one artist had painted Van Gogh’s Sunflowers no less than 3500 times in the past 20 years) you should be aware of what these guys get up to.
Every few months I receive emails from Chinese Copy Galleries offering to copy my work for around twenty pounds per canvas. One of them even said “all you have to do is sign the canvasses which are returned to you and you have saved hours of work”, the idea being that I then go on and make an obscene profit. If I am receiving such emails, then obviously, so too are many other artists around the world.
I blogged about this because it annoyed me and also interested me. I understand that these artists have to live and have to make money bu they seem less than honest and whilst their is a world full of people who want to hang cheap reproductions on their walls, there will always be those who support real artists, who paint honestly and couldn’t contemplate turning out 7 paintings in one day.
I’m beginning to think I should remove this blog post – since it went online I have been inundated by Chinese painters!
Interesting blog Joe, it’s a world I’d never heard of, closest I’ve came to something like that is when someone tried to pass off one of my blogs as their own! I mean I know I’m terrifically funny and all but use yer own word fella!
Exactly Shug – dirty word-stealers, plagiarism is everywhere…