Elmyr de Hory

Elmyr De Hory (1906-1976) was a famous Hungarian-born painter and art forger whose forgeries have become popular in their own right. He claimed to have sold over a thousand forgeries all over the world.

Most of the information we have about his early life comes from what he told American writer Clifford Irving, who wrote the first biography about him. According to De Hory, he was born Elmyr Dory-Boutin. His father was an Austro-Hungarian ambassador and his mother came from a family of bankers. His parents left him to the care of various governesses. When he was sixteen, they divorced.

Elmyr moved to Budapest to study and developed homosexual habits. At 18, he joined the Akademie Heinmann art school in Munich, Germany to study classical painting. In 1926 he moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie la Grande Chaumière, where he studied under Fernand Léger. He also became accustomed to fine living. Eventually he returned to Hungary.

Shortly after his return, he got involved with a British journalist. This friendship landed him in a jail for political prisoners, because the journalist was a suspected spy. He eventually befriended the prison camp officer by painting his portrait and was later released during the Second World War.

Within a year, De Hory was imprisoned in a German concentration camp as a Jew. He was severely beaten and was transferred to a Berlin prison hospital, where he escaped so he could later slip back into Hungary. There he learned that his parents had been killed and their estate confiscated. With his remaining money he bribed his way into France where he tried to earn his living by painting.

In 1946 De Hory sold a reproduction of a Picasso to a British friend who took it as an original. He begun to sell his Picasso reproductions to art galleries, claiming that they were what remained of his family's estate. Galleries took them and paid the equivalent of $100 to $400 per painting.

The same year he formed a partnership with Jacques Chamberlin, who became his dealer. They toured Europe with de Hory's forgeries until he discovered that although they were supposed to share the profits equally, Chamberlin kept most of the money. He ended the relationship and toured alone. In 1947 De Hory visited the USA with a three-month visa and decided to stay, touring the country.

Occasionally, De Hory would try to stop painting forgeries and to create original artwork, but could never find a market. He returned to forgery because it was more lucrative. Eventually he expanded his forgeries to include Matisse, Modigliani and Renoir and began to paint with oil. He also began to use pseudonyms, because some of the galleries had become suspicious and begun to sell his work by mail order. His pseudonyms included Louis Cassou, Joseph Dory, Joseph Dory-Boutin, Elmyr Herzog, Elmyr Hoffman and E. Raynal.

In the 1950's, De Hory eventually settled into Miami. He kept on selling the forgeries through mail and studied more masters to imitate. 1955 one of his Matisse forgeries was sold to Fogg Art Museum. However, authorities discovered it was a fake and launched an investigation.

In 1955 De Hory sold art to a Chicago art dealer Joseph W. Faulkner, who discovered they were fakes. Faulkner pressed charges and initiated a federal case against him. De Hory escaped to Mexico City, where he was briefly jailed on trumped-up charges, suspected of a murder of a British homosexual. When police extorted money from him, De Hory hired a lawyer who demanded exorbitant prizes. De Hory paid him with one his forgeries and returned to the USA.

While there, De Hory discovered that some of the art galleries were selling his forgeries with prizes that showed that they had paid him only a fraction of what they thought they were worth. In addition, his style of forgery had become recognizable. He resorted to selling fake lithographs, again door-to-door. He began to suffer from depression and attempted suicide by sleeping pills in Washington DC. He recovered and moved back to Miami.

In Miami he met Ferdinand Legros, who become his next art dealer for a cut of 40%. Again De Hory toured USA, this time with Legros. In time Legros wanted to increase his cut to 50% although he actually kept much more. Legros also befriended a Canadian Real Lessard who became his lover. When the two begun to bicker, De Hory got fed up and left.

In 1959 De Hory tried to return to Europe. He ran into Legros again in Paris and revealed him that some of his stock was still in New York. Legros stole them, sold them for his own accord and gained prestige as an art dealer. Year later, when Legros had managed to build an art dealership, De Hory met him and joined him again. Legros and Lessard again begun to sell De Hory's work with a regular $400 a month for De Hory.

In 1962 De Hory moved to Ibiza. At the same time, Legros and Lessard sold his paintings for large amount of money and gave him a small cut. To keep De Hory interesting, Legros built him a home in Ibiza. De Hory's work suffered and art experts begun to notice his paintings as forgeries. Soon, the Interpol was in the tail of Legros and Lessard. Legros sent De hory to Australia for year and he returned to Europe 1965.

In 1966, Legros sold 56 paintings to a Texas oil magnate Algur Hurtle Meadows, who was outraged to learn that most of his collection was forgeries. Legros was charged. Angered, he drove De Hory out of the house in Ibiza and he moved to the continent. Both Legros and Lessard were apprehended soon afterward.

Eventually De Hory decided to move back to Ibiza. In August 1968 Spanish court sentenced him with homosexuality and consorting with criminals to 2 months in prison. He was released October 1968 and exiled from Ibiza.

Year later De Hory returned to Ibiza, now a celebrity. He told his story to Clifford Irving, appeared in television and even in Orson Welles' pseudo-documentary "F for Fake".

De Hory decided to try painting again, hoping to exploit his new-found fame, this time only with his own, signed work. He made little profit but now he had gained recognition. However, French authorities tried to extradite him from Ibiza on charges of fraud.

Elmyr de Hory was found dead in his home in December 11 1976. He had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Some of his friends later claimed that the suicide was faked so that he could escape the extraditions but there is no evidence of that.

After his death, De Hory's paintings have become valuable and wanted collectibles. Actually, they are so popular that there are forged De Horys.

Books

• Clifford Irving - Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time (1969)
• Ken Talbot - Enigma! The New Story of Elmyr de Hory the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time (1991)