Its no surprise that in India (and in most neighboring countries), ‘duplicate maal’ (fake products) sells like hotcakes. And this applies to ‘artworks’ as well. No wonder, several Art connoisseurs are unhappy with the fact that no real action is being done on the ground to stop the growing ‘fake art’ market.
Few years back, artist MF Husain (one of the most famous artists in India) was unable to identify the prints of his own work. Being one of the most wll-known artists means the genius’ works are faked the most. Yes, that’s true!
Mr. Husain once said that many of his fake works were being circulated. But admitted that it was tiresome to get into the legal nitty gritties of these things.
Now here’s another curious case, where the presenter of a show had produced a certificate from a critic saying that all the artworks (of renowned artist KH Ara displayed at the Jehangir Art Gallery) were original. However, Padmavibhushan Kekoo Gandhy, an art veteran, who also visited the exhibition said those works were fakes.
Kekoo Gandhy has paintings of renowned artist Bikash Bhattacharjee, but to his dismay, all them have been declared as fakes by experts.
Kekoo says, “Bikash is one of my favourite artists. It hurts me to think that the works that I have are his fakes.”
Another Bengali artist Jamini Roy’s works are sold for an attractive price in India and abroad. However, Jamini is no more and there’s no way to ascertain if those are his works, or he just signed some of them (Jamini firmly believed that art should be affordable to all so he signed some of the artwork produced by his folks).
There’s no doubt that fakes are a harsh reality, but what’s worse is that nothing is being by the government/administration to end their circulation.
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