Goa's Mario Gallery serves legal notice to event management agency of G20

Panaji, July 7 The Mario Gallery in Panaji on Friday served a legal notice to the event management agency that handled the G20 Summit recently held in Goa, for allegedly using its artworks without permission.

Noted cartoonist Mario Miranda's sons Rishaad and Raul had earlier said that they were shocked and surprised to see the artworks of their late father being used at the summit meetings "without any permission".

The legal notice has given the agency, Sean Adevent, a period of seven days to handover all the artwork that belong to the gallery.

“The legal notice states that if Sean Adevent does not comply within the time given, Mario Gallery will initiate appropriate legal proceedings,” Gerard da Cunha, the galler's curator, said in a statement.

He said that the notice is with respect to the installation of Mario Miranda's famous caricature drawings in the form of life-sized figurines placed in Old Goa and Dona Paula for the G20 Summit.

“Till now we have taken note of the eight figurines int Old Goa, eight figurines in 2 clusters at the Goa University, four figurines at the NIO circle, while there were reports of many more figurines which are being verified,” da Cunha added.

"It is shocking that when India and Goa are trying to impress the G20 countries that we are a developed country, we infringe on the copyright of our late father's work," Rishaad and Raul Miranda said in the statement.

“Our family had set up the Mario Gallery which looks after his (Mario's) legacy in various ways namely publishing books, organising exhibition, selling original paintings, authenticating pictures, giving permissions for usage, taking legal action against violators, making merchandise," they added.