Where is the real origin of your art paintings that are purchased from gallery in high price? This article explores the truth for you with statistics from importing data of customs from EU and US.
According to the statistics of US Custom, its imports of oil paintings keep growing in recent years, with over $2.5 billion in 2003. And in 2008, US' oil painting import had already exceeded $12 billion.
We can see from the statistics of US Custom that, several countries’oil painting exports to US have surged since 2004. For example, the export by France increased from $998 million in 2003 to $3.5 billion in 2008, a net increase of $300 million while Britain almost doubled from $378 million to $601 million and the annual export growth rate of Germany reached 30%-60%, up from $244 million to $332 million. Austria’s export to US stood at $121 million from January to April 2006, three times more than the total $42.85 million in 2005.
In Russia, the number was $29.73 million in 2003, $94.33 million in 2008. Greece also witnessed an export growth from $1.264 million in 2005 to $15.224 million in the four months ending in April 2008.
It is important to note that ornamental oil painting is painters’ handwork and it takes at least two years to train a professional painter. As a result, the annual growth rate of oil painting supply of so called “producing place” is normally less than 10%, especially with scarce or expensive manpower. Therefore, if the supply in some countries or regions suddenly shoots up , it is because they have got other “source”-- the transit trade. Oil painting is different from industrial product in that it has no “Made in China”label, benefiting the transit trade by some countries and regions.
The oil painting export route which used to be China—Hong Kong—Europe—US and now changed into China—Middle East/ North Africa—Europe—US.
So why not buy from the goods source directly?
For those few big painting company, who have their own studio with at least 100 painters and a showroom over 300 square meters. Fujian TOPERFECT is among them, (http://www.oilpaintingfactory.com) as you can see in their videos. Big suppliers like this are the only ones who are drawing big buyers on.