Officials at a gallery based in Singapore are under fire from son and father art collectors who say they were lied to over the veracity of paintings by Indonesian artists. The trial over the counterfeit paintings is ongoing, and the father and son, who are Malaysian, are suing the Singaporean gallery. The father is also listed on the lawsuit in spite of the son being the one who purchased the paintings.
The son first crossed paths with the gallery during an art fair, where he said gallery owners purported to have paintings from well-known Indonesian artists on display. The son says the gallery owners told him that the paintings would increase in value over time, and he purchased them with the understanding that they were what he was told they were.
In fact, the son continued to have a relationship with the Singaporean gallery over the next few years. The gallery owners sent pictures of new art they had acquired to the son, and he kept purchasing art pieces as investments. The son himself was a beginning art collector who lacked experience in purchasing pieces. All in all, more than $700,000 was spent in purchasing the art. Gallery owners assured the son that the pieces were worth, in total, nearly $3 million.
Later, when the son decided he wanted to sell some of the paintings, the gallery owners said they could turn a profit on a couple of them, but advised him to hold on to at least one of the paintings they had sold him. They explained that it was sure to grow in value over the next few years.
However, when the paintings were eventually appraised, art experts discovered that the son had been duped. The paintings that had been promised to be worth so much money were actually worth less than $10,000 in total — a far cry from the value originally cited. The paintings weren’t the originals. They were counterfeit, meaning that they weren’t worth very much at all. Experts say the fact that the gallery owners didn’t have corresponding paperwork proving that the paintings were originals should have been a key indication that the paintings weren’t what they seemed, but it is apparent that the son did not know what to look for in purchasing the paintings and verifying their veracity.
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To read more about the case, go to http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/dad-and-son-sue-art-gallery-for-fraud-negligence.