The Change Mariner

Vietnam's Copycat Artists Cater to Renoir Cravings

Reuters

As a child, Nguyen Thanh Tung was always fascinated by the beautiful paintings of Renoir.

Now a prosperous real estate dealer, the 30-year-old can finally afford to own work by his favorite artist, even if they are only copies by Vietnam's skilled masterpiece painters.

Years of poverty and isolation from the West led many in communist Vietnamese to view art as a bourgeois extravagance. But now that has all changed.

Art buying is taking off, driven by a fast-growing middle class with a penchant for decorative furnishings.