Just imagine coming near to the end of your lifelong career as an artist. You’ve enjoyed much success over the years and galleries all over the world regularly put together exhibitions of your work. Famous galleries invite you over and treat you like a king and let you say a few words during the opening. Sounds like a great way to spend old age after a lot of years of hard work.

Now, imagine yourself being at the point described here. You arrive at the exhibition, you’re handed a glass of wine and you’re about to start your speech. Then you realise that the majority of paintings on display are fakes! This is what famous Indian artist, S.H Raza found himself in recently.
The 85 year old artist was invited along to an exhibition of his work at the Dhoomimal Gallery in Connaught Place, New Delhi, India only to find that nearly all of the 35 works that were supposedly his were fakes.

SH Raza told the Times of India “The gallery had my works on display and they invited me to visit the gallery on the opening evening. When I entered the gallery, I felt as if I had entered some other place since none of the works on display was mine. The fake makers should realise that creating fakes of someone’s works is like signing a cheque in someone else’s name.”

As soon as the gallery were informed of the fakes they closed the exhibition immediately.