All 18 works at show of Spanish artist Maruja Mallo were fakes, say experts

Curator of Galician show honouring surrealist admits we knew there would be a fuss' over authenticity

A year after an exhibition celebrating the works of the pioneering Spanish surrealist artist Maruja Mallo closed its doors, a letter from experts has emerged claiming that none of the works displayed actually sprang from the hand of the avant garde painter.

Mallo, who died in 1995, was associated with the so-called literary Generation of 27, whose members included Federico Garcia Lorca, Ernestina de Champourcin, Pedro Salinas, Rosa Chacel, Maria Teresa Leon and Rafael Alberti. Her striking, stylised works were painted in her home country and in South America, where she lived in exile for a quarter of a century following Franco's victory in the Spanish civil war.