Painters paint picture edges black on the roof of a studio at Dafen Oil Painting Village in Shenzhen, China, on April 26, 2011. Photo: REUTERS/Jason Lee
Dafen village, a suburb of Shenzhen in China, is believed to be the largest mass producer of oil paintings in the world. But the thousands of artists who rent exterior walls to display and sell the paintings will soon need to find other places to show off their work, as the local government has pledged to ban the practice. Reuters reports that the cleanup is an "effort to brush up the town's image" before the upcoming Universiade winter sports event.
Artists in Dafen manufacture some 60 percent of the total global trade volume for these reproductions, according to China Daily. Cory visited it himself recently, and published a set of photos on Flickr. Mark wrote about enormous talent of the Dafen village artists in 2008.
