Elmyr de Hory

Elmyr de Hory: The Forger Who Was Never Convicted of Forgery

For three decades, collectors on both sides of the Atlantic bought Picassos, Matisses and Modiglianis that none of those men had ever touched. They came from a charming Hungarian with a drawer full of aliases and an aristocratic past he had made up. Estimates put his output at more than 1,000 forgeries. Yet Elmyr de Hory was never convicted of forging a single one. The only jail term firmly on his record lasted two months, in Spain in 1968, for homosexuality, consorting with criminals and having no visible means of support. When Spain finally agreed in 1976 to send him to France to face fraud charges, he died by suicide on Ibiza before the handover.

A Nobleman Invented in Budapest

He was born in Budapest in 1906 as Elemér Albert Hoffmann. In later life he described a Catholic diplomat father and a landed family. The city's records tell a plainer story: his father, Adolf, was a Jewish merchant. De Hory also said the Nazis had wiped out his entire family. Yet the "cousin" who later visited his villa on Ibiza, Istvan Hont, turned out to be his brother. His accounts of the war years, full of prisons and escapes, rest largely on his own word.

The training, at least, was real. He studied classical painting at the Akademie Heinmann in Munich, then went to Paris, where he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and worked under Fernand Léger. But Fauvism, Expressionism and Cubism had remade painting, and a classically schooled figurative artist had little to sell. His own canvases found almost no buyers. The skill was waiting for a use.

A Picasso by Mistake

The career began with someone else's error. In Paris in 1946, a British woman looked at one of his pen-and-ink drawings and took it for a Picasso. He sold it to her. The lesson was brutal and simple: a famous name was worth vastly more than his own.

From then on, de Hory did not copy known pictures. He made new ones in the manner of the masters, which left experts no original to compare them against.

Selling Paris to America

In August 1947 he arrived in the United States. A January 1948 show of his own work at Lilienfeld Galleries in New York sold one piece; he blamed a snowstorm. For roughly a decade afterward he toured the country posing as a fallen aristocrat and selling pictures in the styles of Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani.

What finally betrayed the fakes was not any gap between his hand and the masters'. It was their likeness to one another. A dealer took him to federal court, and de Hory fled to Mexico City, where police briefly held him in connection with a murder case before he moved on.

The Legros Years

His most prolific partner was Fernand Legros, an experienced con man. Over nine years Legros sold de Hory's work on five continents, backed by paperwork that made each picture look legitimate. De Hory settled on Ibiza, where Clifford Irving was a neighbour and Marlene Dietrich and Ursula Andress were among his acquaintances.

Forty-Four Fakes in Dallas

The partnership broke on a Texas fortune. Algur Meadows, a Dallas oilman, had filled his 15-room mansion with Dufys, Derains, Modiglianis and Vlamincks bought through Legros. In February 1967 a team from the Art Dealers Association of America examined the collection. Of the 58 paintings Meadows had bought over four years, it judged 44 to be fakes. French police had already raided the apartment of Legros's partner, Lessard, and found fake pictures and forged expert certificates addressed to Dallas. Legros and Lessard were later convicted and jailed. De Hory, the man who had actually painted the pictures, evaded the police and slipped back to Ibiza.

Two Months for Everything but Forgery

In 1968 a Spanish court convicted him on charges that said more about Franco's Spain than about art: homosexuality, consorting with criminals, chiefly Legros, and having no visible means of support. He served two months in jail on Ibiza, was released in October and was expelled from the island. By 1969 he was back. Forgery was never on the charge sheet. Prosecutors had no proof that he had painted a single fake on Spanish soil.

Famous at Last

Disgrace made him a celebrity. In 1969 Irving published *Fake!*, a bestselling account written with de Hory's cooperation and billed as the story of "the greatest art forger of our time." Irving would soon become notorious himself, for a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Orson Welles then put both men at the centre of *F for Fake*, his 1973 essay on trickery, filming de Hory at work.

In November 1969 a 20-year-old Minnesotan named Mark Forgy arrived on Ibiza and became his gardener, secretary and assistant for seven years. De Hory, Forgy later said, was "more of a father than my actual father." In his final years de Hory painted under his own name. Exposure had done what talent alone never could: it created a market for an original Elmyr.

December 1976

The reprieve ended in 1976. France wanted him on fraud charges, and a Spanish judge agreed to extradite him. Forgy brought him the news. On 11 December 1976, de Hory died by suicide on Ibiza. Spanish police, unsure who the dead man really was after so many aliases, took his fingerprints. Some friends suspected the death had been staged to dodge extradition. No evidence has ever supported that theory. He is buried on the island.

The pictures outlived him. Experts believe many of his fakes still hang under famous names. Kenneth Wayne, director of The Modigliani Project, has said de Hory's Modiglianis are so numerous that a definitive catalogue of the artist's work cannot be compiled. Forged "de Horys" have since appeared on the market, a final irony for a man who spent his life impersonating other painters.

On Screen and in Print

• Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time (1969), book, McGraw-Hill, by Clifford Irving.
• F for Fake (1973), essay film, directed by Orson Welles; de Hory appears as himself, alongside Irving and Oja Kodar.
• The Forger's Apprentice (2012), memoir, self-published, by Mark Forgy.
• Real Fake: The Art, Life & Crimes of Elmyr de Hory (2017), documentary, by Jeff Oppenheim.

Why Elmyr de Hory Is Called a Genius

Because the hand was real. De Hory could absorb the line of Matisse, the long faces of Modigliani and the speed of Picasso, then produce new pictures that dealers, collectors and museums accepted as authentic for decades. Few painters of his century moved between so many styles with such fluency. That gift is why he appears on Geniuses.club. It is also why his story is a warning, not a tribute. He used it to sell false history to people who trusted it, to corrupt the record of artists who could no longer defend their own work, and to leave a fog over museum walls that has never fully lifted. No court ever convicted him of forgery. That says more about borders, statutes and his talent for vanishing than about his innocence. The skill deserves study. The deception deserves no applause.

Achievements

• Experts estimate he placed more than 1,000 forgeries on the market over some thirty years, in the manner of Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Dufy and others.
• He was never convicted of forgery; his one documented jail term was two months in Spain in 1968, for homosexuality, consorting with criminals and having no visible means of support.
• In 1967 a dealers' panel judged 44 of the 58 paintings bought by Dallas oilman Algur Meadows to be fakes, exposing the de Hory–Legros operation.
• His Modigliani-style fakes are so numerous that the director of The Modigliani Project has said a definitive catalogue of the artist's work cannot be compiled.
• Subject of Clifford Irving's 1969 bestseller Fake! and star, as himself, of Orson Welles's 1973 film F for Fake.
• Trained at the Akademie Heinmann in Munich and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris under Fernand Léger.
• After his death, Spanish police took his fingerprints to confirm his identity, so many aliases had he used.
• Forgeries of his own work have since appeared on the market.