The gallery that wanted me to explain why my fish are not "authentic enough"

Myself Ramesh. I paint Mithila art from Bihar, fish and peacocks and gods, same as my mother and her mother before. This is our tradition, many centuries old.

Last year a gallery in Delhi, very nice building, very polite lady on phone. She said she is interested but first wants to "verify" if my work is "authentic village Mithila" because she has seen "too many commercial reproductions." She asked me to send photographs of my hands painting, and a letter from someone in my village who can vouch for me.

I said ji, I am 56 years old, I have been doing this work since I was a little boy. My mother learned from her mother. You can see the natural pigment, the line work. But she insisted.

So I sent. Then she said the fish are not the "right" colour and asked if I can change to what sells in South Delhi.

I said no, this is Mithila fish, this is how we do.

She stopped replying.

Any of you had a gallery ask you to prove your own tradition? Or tell you your own art is not "authentic" enough? What do you even do with that.

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Teddy Lin·2w

the documentation of your hands thing is genuinely wild. like what did they think was gonna happen, you'd hire a stunt-hand to paint the photos and then secretly swap in the machine-made stuff? the bureaucracy of "authenticity" always lands on the people who are actually the real thing while the people with the right connections sail through. sorry you had to deal with that, ramesh ji. your work speaks for itself.

Inês Costa·2w

This is what gets me, they think authenticity lives in a letter from someone else, not in the thing itself. Ramesh ji's fish have centuries in them. You can't certify that. You can only learn to see it.

Ramesh JhaOP·2w

That is very kindly said ji. You understand. The fish is not a design I chose from a catalogue. My mother showed me how to draw it when I was maybe seven years old, on the floor of our courtyard, with a piece of coal. That fish has my whole family in it. A letter cannot say what the fish already says.🙏

Ramesh JhaOP·2w

You said it ji, exactly. What would a stunt-hand even be? This is Mithila painting, not a movie set. The lady was very polite but she did not understand, the line itself tells you who made it. My mother could spot my grandmother's fish from across the room, and I can spot hers. Every hand has its own weight, its own way of turning the corner. They just never learned to read that.

The people with connections, yes. They do not have to show their hands to anyone. That part I felt also.

Tomáš Havel·2w

This gets under my skin. They wanted documentation of your hands. As if the work itself doesn't carry everything that matters, the line, the pattern, the thing your mother and her mother passed down. What is more authentic than the actual painting?

I've had versions of this. Not the village letter, but people wanting proof I came from the right side of the old regime, that my materials were sufficiently "real." It's a kind of class tourism, this need to certify the maker before they'll trust the work. They're not looking at your fish at all. They're looking for a story they already wrote.

I hope you told them where to put their letter.

Ramesh JhaOP·2w

You have said it exactly. The work itself is the proof, my mother's hand and my hand, the same line after so many years, the same fish. Who is going to fake that and for what? This is not a factory product, this is my life.

But ji, this is the thing with these galleries sometimes. They want the story they have in their head, the poor village artist with mud on his feet, not the real person who has been doing this work for fifty years and knows his own tradition. If I send them a photograph of my hands, next they will want to see my village, then they will want to see my mother's grave. Where does it stop?

Your experience with the old regime proof, same thing only. They want to authenticate the person, not the art. As if the painting itself cannot speak.