“It is unfortunate that about 90 per cent of the paintings of my father being sold in the market are duplicate. We are facing difficulties in preserving the original prints and marketing their copies to keep his gallery at Andretta (Palampur, Himachal Pradesh) in a good shape,” said Gurcharan Kaur.

Gurcharan was in the city to attend the unveiling ceremony of his two hitherto unreleased paintings — portraits of Guru Nanak Dev and Guru Gobind Singh — by Sobha Singh.

Renowned agriculture economist SS Johl unveiled the paintings at the Ramgarhia Girls College today.

Showing concern and anguish over the way some dealers have been sending duplicate paintings into market, she rued, “This is clear violation of the Copyright Act but nobody seems to have taken notice of it. We had served a notice on one such dealer based in Jalandhar, but to no avail. The authorities fail to take any action against such people.”

She added, “The duplicate paintings are still being churned out in big numbers and there is nothing we can do. I cannot afford to get into legal hassles as it involves a lot of time and effort.” She said even the people were being fooled by such dealers as a layman is not able to figure out which is real or which is fake.

The painter’s portrait of Guru Nanak Dev released on his 500th birth anniversary in 1969 is still considered to be one of the most popular portraits of Guru Nanak. Sobha Singh also painted portraits of other Sikh gurus.

Among his other most famous paintings are those of Heer Ranjha and Sohni Mahiwal. Born in 1901, the painter was awarded Padamshri in 1984.