Original Fakes

S.H. Raza, one of India’s leading painters, was “stupefied and outraged” to discover that several paintings at an exhibition of his painting, which he was inaugurating, were fakes.

The Dhoomimal Art Gallery, which invited Raza to inaugurate the exhibit devoted to his works, shut down the show after Raza exposed the fakes.

Uma Ravi Jain, owner of the gallery, that the paintings for the exhibition were sourced from the painter’s nephew and therefore did not arouse suspicion. The paintings were not copies of Raza’s work, but entirely unrelated paintings bearing his signature, what a Raza friend described as an “original fake.”