22 May 2008

Door-To-Door Oil Paintings

| kermit
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I just had a visit from a gentleman claiming he was from overseas and was here selling oil paintings from fellow university students. “Art For All” was the name of the scheme If I remember correctly.

He was selling the paintings from about $150. I purchased one (Silly maybe) for $175, mind you it looks great and will definately put it up. He said a framer will give me a call in a few days to arrange a time to frame it for an additional fee (to cover materials).

I decided to look up this so called “Art For All” and couldnt find anything except for a few things about scams of people selling cheap chinese ripoffs and getting commission from the sales.

Keep an eye out for him in the next couple of days.

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We got ‘hit’ in Forde in early August. Two young French students selling art from a van turned up and conned us. We only made a part payment and informed crime stoppers but they did not seem overly interested. They wanted us to either seek a refund or leave it as is.

Be very careful everyone.

You people have all been sucked in by a scam! I can’t wait until my cheque arrives from the Nigerian bank so I can retire to my island get away and never have to read such sorry tails ever again………

Just had a guy from brazil claiming he was an art.teacher trying to sell these paintings
In harrison area.

They were nice but I didnt buy any. At first he makes out that he merely wants your opinions
On thestudents paintings but then at the end he tries to sell them.

#45ori israel
()
16:12, 12 Jun 10
Quote Previewed comment:

first of all, those oil painting are 100% hand made for sure!!!! i’ve been in those places where the artists make them and you have no idea how talanted those artists are (each painting start from a blank canvas and made by ONE artist without any envolve of any machin)it doesn’t matter where are the artists from, you’ll find the SAME paintings exactly that made by the same artist in any art galleries for thousends of dollars, some people just take the story to far and say that they did the paintings. i don’t think it’s matter.
as long as you love this painting and it makes you fill good it was wors the money you paid for them. no one forced you to buy anything. it was youre chois, i was working as well few years ago in one company in California, i sold a lot of paintings and made a LOT of money!!! i never lied about anything, i never sayd i made the paintings, i allways said that i’m en art diller and i was the best!! i have more than 25 people that i’m still in touch with them and we r really good friends and they all know aventualy about those paintings and every time i talk with them they remind me how lucky are thay that i came to their door and how much they love the paintings!
those paintings are AMAZING!!! and they stay for very long time (more then 40 years at least)
sorry for my english mistaks. i’m from Israel and it’s not my lenguage…

“My mum bought an oil painting from the “starving artists” group of oil painting door-to-door guys about 20 years ago. turns out that today the painting is worth a lot of money because the artist is now a well known Aussie artist with paintings often going to auction for $5K plus. So…you can get lucky from this kind’s of thing. I reckon if you like the painting, go ahead and support the artist by buying it.”

Well that’s half your luck! Mine were not valued at that much…haha.

Just had a visit in Griffith from a young bloke from a ‘famous French art school’ with a ‘French’ accent selling art door-to-door for $300 per piece. He might’ve been legit, but I don’t think so 🙂 Certainly didn’t look like any style the Sorbonne would lay claim to. Several of the pictures had that distinctive sponged foliage that Chinese knock-offs so lovingly embrace. But, art is in the eye of the beholder, and if you do buy his stuff, let me know and I’ll show you my collection too.

A guy named ‘Uri’ turned up to my house in Franklin this evening with the same sales pitch. He had some sort of accent and was around 5’8″, short dark hair and glasses. I even got his mobile number!

I had a feeling it was dodgy, so jumped straight on the internet once he left. Thanks to this discussion, I have been able to identify several of the paintings he showed me on http://www.doupine.com and have called the police to let them know he is in the area. Not sure if they care but at least I have tried to help.

i tried ordering one the paintings from overseas…I received it very late and I was hit by a large quarantine inspection fee. Plus it did not look like the They may look cheap but it costs alot to bring them in if you only get a couple! Be careful, they seem cheap to buy but you will be paying alot to get past quarantine inspection.

You are better to buy them from the people who knock on door or from a respectable website.

The ones from overseas do not come framed either. Make sure you get them framed or you end up with another unexepted cost…that’s why I would prefer to get them from sales people or an australian website.

SJ

Newcastle, NSW, Australia
They are everywhere. I had a young man come around last night at 7:00pm. My wife looked through the paintings for approximately 15 minutes (and that signals bad news for my wallet).
She called me out and the young man introduced himself as an artist from Russia selling art works completed by him and other struggling artist. I asked if they were originals and he said they were. He even told me how many layers each one was and where each artist was from. I asked which ones were his, and he told me it would be biased to disclose this.
My wife had selected 4 paintings for $95, $105, $135 and $145. Total $480. I asked him if he would take $300 for the 4 and without pausing said yes. I paid by cheque!!!
After he left I Googled ‘door to door art’ and found many forums such as this. I contacted the local police who mentioned that the sellers are being investigated by Crime Stoppers and themselves for fraud and unlicensed selling, In Australia there must be a contract when selling door-to-door and a 10 day cooling off period. I quickly cancelled my cheque; and will return the paintings to the man if/when he returns.

Don’t get me wrong, my wife loves the paintings but it was the blatant lies and the scheming done by these people that changed my mind about giving them money. I did a search this morning and found all 4 paintings online; 2 from Mexico and 2 from china. Even with posting it is cheaper. And paid with PayPal so guaranteed to be what I paid for i.e. beautiful oil painting REPRODUCTIONS.

Same thing happened to me last night in MacGregor.Two young foreign males attended my home claiming to be Israeli art students selling art work from their art college in University to pay for their trip around Australia. They spoke at length about the quality of each piece, showing about 30 paintings, my wife let them in.

I googled and then asked them to leave. Boy was Mrs TAD upset at me, till I showed her the google results.

http://www.ozcomments.com/archives/70
http://www.starnewsgroup.com.au/story/8437
http://www.pfes.nt.gov.au/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewMediaRelease&pID=5664&y=2006&mo=11
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/israeli-art-scam-hits-illawarra/1413107.aspx

dorkus mallorkus5:48 pm 22 Mar 09

We just had an Israeli guy stop in at our place in Kambah as well. My wife – who’s usually far less tolerant of door-to-door hawkers – let him in and encouraged him to do a full exhibition of the portfolio he was carrying with him. I knew I’d read something about art students going from door to door, and a quick RA archive search turned up this thread.

The wife was this close to handing over $165 for a painting of a rose, which is available on that Doupine website for about $10. All the other paintings he showed us were on that same website as well. He was shown the door soon after, with no money having changed hands.

ahhhhh RiotACT rox!

We had an Israeli guy come by last night to sell some paintings on Angora street in Harrison. Not knowing much about art we were considering it, he even allowed us to hold on to some of the paintings overnight so he can come back the next day. This just added to my suspicion, and then I find this thread with the doupine website linked, and sure enough the paintings I saw were on there.

The $220 “original” we were looking at is $17.95us + postage from http://www.doupine.com

He will be back tonight, now I’m wondering whether I should call the police…

We’re glad we could help!

Had two Israeli guys with their student art work from Israel (representing struggling art students). Said price was for canvas & paint only, explained what the paintings meant and how much effort & heart went into it from the students. Bargained two very large original oil paintings of $680 & $630 each down to $1K for both.

Had to go to the bank, they came back later. In between, found this site and all paintings on http://www.doupine.com – yes from China! They came back shortly later to get paid, told them where to shove their paintings!

Thank you guys for this web site, saved me $1K!!!!

Noon

Can’t wait for him to knock on my door. I’ve got the cauldron full of boiling hot oil just nice and ready for pouring…

I just bought two paintings from a french artist / door to door salesman in Sydney (in the Cantebury area) for $180 each. I really like the paintings but now I know they are not original. I didn’t ask many questions and looked on the net later. I read that these paintings sell for $5 in China and are bought by the salesman / “artist” for $75 and sold for around $150.My paintings are signed “Defour” and I was shown paintings of the sea, Paris(black and white and blue and white) , Venice, two of Mykynos, an abstract of a blue woman with gold foil and silver foil on the canvas, an abstract of 2 block figures in orange and an abstract of a fish wife. Look out for these. This was an extravagant buy for me. I would have preferred to give the money to the artist and not some backpacker willing to make money in this manner. I really thought he painted these works.He went through colours etc. I would classify this as an illegal activity.He should be ashamed of himself. I feel ripped off . They all should feel ashamed about what they are doing. Go pick fruit! Australia needs workers not criminals!Go do that in your own country. I hope this info is helpful to someone else.

I think i had the same guy come to my door. He seemed really nice and spoke english really well and was quite happy to chat to us about his art and home town. Other than now reading about some peoples dubious thoughts on the paintings i thought they were very well done. I was particulary interested in one and he even held it up to the light for me to see the different layers of paint. So i had no doubt in my mind about it being a print. I was even allowed and encouraged to fell the texture of some paintings with the back of my hand. He was even quite happy to exchange phone numbers with me so i could have a think about my final purchase.

I havent actually bought anything from him yet but i wouldnt be regretting it if i did.

If you think it’s money well spent and you like it then that’s all that matters. $175 isnt much for a decent painting that you like. It just comes down to having some common sense before forking over your money, ie.. have a close look at it.

When we start worrying about dozens of Chinese artists chained to their easels, should we not also think about this being at least an outlet for some artistic feeling. And shouldn’t we be feeling the same way about the $8 t-shirt we wear, or the $30 frypan we use to cook?

Maybe to terrorism like other scams?

Hahaha

I have a wonderful self portrait of Osama Bin Laden in my lounge room – well the salesman said it was a self portrait. He said the $50 was going to feed his blind mother.

but…

Isn’t this just the same as downloading pirated movies or music from the internet? Maybe free or at a reduced cost?

It’s still supporting ripping off the real artist and putting them out of business… Plus, do you know really where your money is going?
Maybe to terrorism like other scams?

Of course you could still buy it to better off yourself but do you as a person have morals…

It’s a scam. Simple. The claimed provenance will always be a fib. The reason it’s being sold will always be a lie. There’s a bonus to the seller in getting even more money for something (a frame) that will never be delivered.

But, if you wind up with a bit of wall decoration that you like, that’s a good thing. Not unlike Channel Nine/WIN sporting memorabilia, really. Mass produced tat, but if owning a bit of paper with a microscopic fragment of Warnie’s jockstrap glued to it is what you want, fine. Not likely to be an investment, but who cares. Same as the tat produced by Franklin Mint and similar companies – it might be pretty, but it is never going to be worth what was charged. If you are really interested in, say, miniature pewter beer tankards, you might think it enduringly wonderful.

On the other hand, my most recent visit to a local commercial gallery a few weeks back persuaded me that utter rubbish remains so, even if definitely produced by the identified artist and accompanied by a pompous gush of words that reads like a public service mission statement. Vision is a good thing for an artist to have, but a modicum of technical competence would be even better.

My parents bought a couple of oil paintings a few years back, they were superb and well worth the money.

If you like it and willing to pay the money for it, then no problem.

tylersmayhem3:49 pm 23 May 08

I think the main problem here is the deception or misleading that the artwork has been done by the “artist” salesperson, or their “group” and selling by pity tactics. If they were up front about that the paintings from overseas, and they are selling them to continue travelling, then sure – no worries.

custom hemet ?

Petrol tank ?

I’ll mention something I’ve been considering when we catch up – it’ll only be a matter of time that we both attend a RA pissup.

mael, umm no… but he has been known to paint and airbrush cars for friends…

He done a laser with hot rod styled flames licking it from front to rear… looked sweet..

blingblingbears1:03 pm 23 May 08

How funny this is!

We bought a painting from a door-to-door Israeli uni student a few years ago. Its been sitting around for ages and I finally took it to a framing place last weekend.

I knew that this guy was a bit dodgy but we paid $150 for a paiting of the Mykonos Islands. We like it and thats all that matters really! We even got a photo of the Israeli guy…

But if I came across another salesman now I doubt I would buy again… slave to the mortgage now!

Hey Danman, was it your brother who was entering artwork into the summernats paint-a-bit-of-vehicle competition ?

grate speeling dannman

I offered to hook them up with a gallery that would do exhibitions FOR FREE to help travelling art students.

Hook me up – Im not poor or struggling, but I have plenty of photos I would like to exibit, and consign to art spaces and I do all my own framing too….Do no tbuy a manual mitre box set up – they ar epretty shoddy… get an electronic mitre saw, som emitre clamps, a router and some glue and a tape measure… oh and 5mm MDF for the backing… Bobs yer aunties husband

James-T-Kirk11:47 am 23 May 08

Did you like it?

Were you happy to pay the money?

Then – What’s the problem. This is basically how free-enterprise works – You obtain stock, and do the work to sell the stock at a profit.

Duh?

There’s a book written about this called The Naked Drinking club which details the life of a girl visiting Australia who falls in with a group called ART. They drive around with a selection of paintings selling them door to door to earn money.
When I used to work in retail, we actually had one of these guys come into our shop and try to sell us paintings. There were (I thought) originals as well as some dodgy knock offs of famous works. Then I saw the same set of works being sold at Gorman house markets by a different group. I don’t really think there’s a problem with this at all, but find it amusing to imagine all the people out there thinking they have original paintings hanging on their walls little knowing their neighbours probably have the same ones in their houses.

someoneincanb11:14 am 23 May 08

I had the same door-door man this week. I was kind of interested in the artwork (I didn’t get around to asking prices but what I saw wasn’t worth paying that much) but the man rang on my doorbell at 5.30pm and I was otherwise engaged at the time.

When I asked details e.g. do you have a gallery or exhibition where I can see the pictures at my own leisure I go the spiel about travelling students. I offered to hook them up with a gallery that would do exhibitions FOR FREE to help travelling art students. He started to look slightly panicked. Then I got a spiel about how the student artists need to “explain their work to the buyer” and a display would not work as the “1 on 1” nature of door-door was essential to sell works. I asked the salesman which pictures he painted. The answer was “none of these”. (umm so where is the 1:1 explanation from the *artist*??)

Did you see the car this “poor travelling art student” was driving?

My guess? Not art from poor travelling art students and door-door is fantastic for pressure selling and dodging taxes.

I used to hang out with a bunch of Israeli stoners who used to pull this scam. They get the paintings sent from China and then pretend to be struggling “European” artists selling door to door. It’s particularly popular with Israelis for some reason. Mostly I think it’s harmless enough. My only reservations would be that many of the real artists produce the paintings in sweatshop conditions and that people are being told their painting is an “original” art work whereas there are, in fact, a thousand identical examples. Also, some are more outrageous than others and will ask for thousands of dollars for paintings that only cost $20 wholesale. Still, if you’re dumb enough to buy a “crying clown” or “sunset over Hong Kong harbour” you get what you pay for.

Its not what happens when you do answer the door that’s the problem, its what happens when you don’t

I’ve also purchased from a mob similar to this. They said they were european artists on a summer holiday, and that they paint the paintings during art classes, and then take them around the world to pay for their summer holiday.

It seemed like a reasonable premise, and the paintings were quite good, so I bought one.

Thinking back, it’s entirely possible that it was painted in some asian sweatshop.

Coincidentally, earlier this year I commissioned a Monet and a Klimpt.

Upon reflecting on my avaliable options (save up $10k and visit the Lourve once, or buy one for $100 and own it for the rest of my life), I opted for the version not necessarily dependent on the genuine artists signature.

I am internally satisfied that my selection was the right one, as I now own 2 absolutely stunning paintings, that have been commissioned, and painted, by my orders.

As yet, they remain unframed, as I am going to make my own – there is sufficient resources on the internet to learn how to do it yourself.

tylersmayhem9:06 am 23 May 08

I agree with most of the comments on here, but I’d avoid the “framing guy” if I were you. And, for the love of Pete, don’t let them inside your house. Would be a great opportunity for someone to scope out what goods you have inside.

pug206gti said :

I think they could have picked better…one of a fruit bowl, while a good study, is totally tackarama.

I have friends who bought a painting of a cartoony martini olive wearing sunglasses, relaxing in his little glass martini pool…

They paid over $1k for it, but wanted a reminder of their honeymoon cruise. :\

Friends of mine bought some from a door-to-door recently. They’re tickled pink. I think they could have picked better…one of a fruit bowl, while a good study, is totally tackarama.

Sometimes these are just prints, with a few daubs of oil to give a few brushstrokes and texture.

Still – if it wasn’t expensive, and you like it, why not buy it.

Cheers Guys,

Thats my thinking too. The value of art is very dependant on how much people are willing to pay for it. I thought it was a good piece, even if it isnt what he said it was Ill still be putting it on my wall.

swamiOFswank11:07 pm 22 May 08

My mum bought an oil painting from the “starving artists” group of oil painting door-to-door guys about 20 years ago. turns out that today the painting is worth a lot of money because the artist is now a well known Aussie artist with paintings often going to auction for $5K plus. So…you can get lucky from this kind of thing. I reckon if you like the painting, go ahead and support the artist by buying it.

Jonathon Reynolds11:04 pm 22 May 08

So long as you are happy, then you got good value for your Monet.

Gungahlin Al10:16 pm 22 May 08

These oil painting sales pitches have been around for many years.
First paintings I bought were just such items. Had them framed and had them for several years. They looked good, I liked them, there are worse ways for a guy to earn a buck.
Just received a Nigerian spam email based around donations for Burma victims. THAT’s something to be bothered by.

so long as it wasn’t stolen

Agreed – if you buy a piece of art you like, think will look good hanging on your wall, then you didn’t get ripped off, no matter where it came from.

I’ve done exactly as you have kermit and am thrilled to have them hanging in my house.

I suppose if you liked it enough to pay $175 for it, then even if it is a scam there’s no problem.

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