Real Fake: The Art, Life & Crimes of Elmyr De Hory (2017) - full transcript

And for lot 100,

I have an opening bid of $100,000.

One hundred? Any bids? 110,000.

Art market is booming right now.

120 on the telephone now. 120,000.

Let's face it,
it's a feeding frenzy, isn't it?

...on my right. 160... 200,000.

The auction houses are having
pretty fantastic success.

...on my right for $230,000.

The art market is, is totally unregulated.

It's rife with fraud.



At $250,000...

You can open the "New York Times"

or the "Wall Street Journal"

almost any day and see some story.

260.

Sort of like the penny
stock market in the 1960s.

260,000.

It's kinda fun that way,

but you have to pay a lot of attention.

$260,000.

-The trough is the art market.
The trough is what's selling.

Going once. Going twice. On for third.

On the hammer, 270,000.

What you're doing is putting
what's going down well



with the animals at the time.

280. Back in. 290.

People collect art
for all sorts of reasons.

Do I hear 300,000?

And to find out that what
you're collecting isn't real.

Last chance. 300,000, I will sell.

I see, probably, a fake a week,

but I don't get caught with them.

The concept of "caveat emptor"
is alive and well in the US.

It's just like your mother told you.

If it's too good to be true,
it's probably not true.

Sold.

Like many a good tale,

it all started because of a girl.

Well, sort of.

I saw her across the crowded room.

Her soft shoulders, her long neck,

her auburn hair, her knowing smile.

My friend made the introductions.

They both baited compliments out of me.

I had to get to know her,

I had to have her.

And it was then that my friend told me...

"She's fake."

And that's how my eight-year long journey

into the art, life, and crimes
of Elmyr de Hory all began.

Let's say

we could find

a Modigliani made by Kisling...

a Modigliani by Elmyr...

and one Modigliani by Modigliani.

We put these three drawings...

in front of a...

group.

Let's say one...

is a director or curator
of drawings of a...

of the Metropolitan,

one is a...

and one is a great art dealer.

It could be anyone,

from Knoedler to Perls
or any of the great ones

who consider themselves great and experts.

And if any of them recognize

which one is which,

I am ready to make a great gift

to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

in New York,

and they can hang it
next to some other Modiglianis

who are possibly also by me.

When you look at the famous forgers,

you look at Tom Keating who did Samuel...

Samuel Palmer and Constable,

Eric Hebborn who specialized
in doing old master drawings.

A fellow named Beltracchi
and one named Pireni

at a Qian level...
very, very talented works.

Van Meegeren of course,
who's famous for doing Vermeers.

It's nothing new.

It's been going on
for probably 2,000 years.

All these people were
pretty much frustrated artists

and so they started to copy
other artists' works

and passing them off as being by them.

Of course, for someone like Elmyr,

his fakes were so good,
people would see them

and they wouldn't feel the need
to look much further.

He's a person who was able to do

a great deal of... of tricking others

to a degree that I think
is not possible anymore today.

When you have fakers coming out now,

you don't have them having passed off

a thousand works, you have them
passing off 100 or 200 works.

And I think that's largely
because of the new tests,

also sort of a general suspicion
on part of the art world,

so he's sort of a watershed moment

for the sort of the history of forgery.

To make first, a point,

I don't copy paintings, painters.

I paint in a certain style,

it could be the style of Matisse
or the style of Modigliani,

in the style of Picasso,

the style of Dufy.

His forgeries were so good

that many people wouldn't
recognize them as fakes.

A lot of people would look at an Elmyr

but think that they are seeing a Picasso

or a Matisse or Modigliani

or some of the other greats that he faked.

His knowledge of art was clearly very good.

Technically, he was a good artist.

So he could replicate pastiche,

uh, other known artists' work.

Um, and he knew enough about the market

to know how to actually sell it.

Forgers want and need to have

compelling and believable sounding stories

to go along with their fake works.

In his case, Elmyr presented himself

as a sort of down-on-his-luck aristocrat

whose family had fallen on hard times

and he was selling off
his collection to help

pay his way.

Everything what I sold very miserably.

The big money what was made
was never made by me.

It was always made by the dealers

and the people who resold it.

What I got for it was a... was a token.

Like a lot of forgers,

he never identified for anyone
all of the works he did.

So we may never know
how many are out there.

We are never safe from forgeries, frankly.

I think a lot of people have
sleepless nights about this.

They really do.

And the question is,

really, "How many of them
passed into museums?"

I remember reading Thomas Hoving's book

about fakes and he claims that
40% of all the works that he saw

when he was at the Met were fakes.

Things that were offered to him. 40%.

The conservator friends suggest that

a full 25% of any one
major museum's holdings,

including things in storage, are not right.

I never offered a painting or a drawing

to a museum who didn't buy it.

It's probably true that
there are some in museums

or in the hands of collectors

or their heirs today that could be found.

- How many are still out there?
- It's a mystery.

Expose the man who holds the art world

on red hot threads.

When the art world looks
at a painting or whatever it is

and they ooh and aah over it,

and they decide that it's
fantastic and it's wonderful,

when these kinda souls find out

that these pieces are not legitimate,

I think there's a certain amount
of egg-on-the-face situation.

And I think at that point
they don't wanna talk about it,

because they made a mistake.

It's the ultimate game of cat and mouse.

And how purchasers...

unwitting purchasers of fake art
are supposed to know that

I think raises a lot
of very, very difficult

to answer questions.

And certainly difficult in a legal sense,

and something that the law

just has to struggle with
on a case-by-case basis.

Really, any... any area of
crime within, involving art

reflects what the marketplace
is doing for art.

So, if Picasso is selling well

you'll find there's an influx of
fake Picassos into the market.

Now, how they do that,
whether they do a direct copy

that's the worst thing they can do.

If they do a pastiche of an artist,

perhaps he's not so well-known,

perhaps he's second tier of that

particular area of art,

and therefore it's
unlikely there's gonna be

a complete catalog raisonné

for the art dealer to check on.

But it looks right,
and, hey, it's selling well,

and if he takes it,

"If I don't buy it off this person

"he's gonna take it to a competitor

"who sure as hell's gonna buy it

"and I've got somebody who is
really interested in buying

this particular commodity right now."

Dealers go for it, they want to believe.

It's the desire of wanting to see it right.

And this is what the forger
and the conman is playing on.

Well, the actual art market
itself, worldwide,

is about $200 billion a year.

That's the consumer part
of that art market.

The largest consumer country in the world

for this type of market
is the United States.

40% of the $200 billion market
is here in the US.

Almost $80 billion a year.

To put it in perspective,

if you take the four major
sports in the United States

baseball, football, hockey, and basketball,

the total receipts each year
is about $26 billion.

How much of that 80 billion
do you think is caused by fakes?

The FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol,

we put together some estimates

as to what the possible
illicit cultural property market

could have been.

And at that time we said,
maybe $6 billion a year.

When we talk about that market,

we are not just talking about theft,

we are talking about frauds,
forgeries, and fakes,

as well as theft.

And from my experience, what I've seen,

probably 75% of that market
is frauds, forgeries, or fakes,

it is not theft.

All you know is you went
to a gallery of some repute

and bought something with the name Matisse

and it looks like a Matisse

and you spent a lot of money on it,

are you supposed to suspect

that maybe it was by de Hory all along?

It doesn't want to be a Matisse.

It just wants to demonstrate

how in short minutes
close I can get to Matisse.

Clearly, I wasn't the first to be fooled

and probably not the last,

so I packed up a few
questionable works of art

that I had acquired and headed to Texas,

where apparently one of the greatest cases

against Elmyr and his associates

had been formed by a gentleman of the name

Algur Meadows,

who had been fooled, not once, not twice,

but, well, in his own words...

Of the 40 paintings I have
acquired from two Frenchmen,

38 of them were fakes.

Well, there's different tracks
you need to do.

A lot of it is a track that is focused

on the paintings themselves
and where they're located,

and another track is following
the forger himself.

Visualize a three-legged stool.

Those three aspects
are provenance, forensics,

and connoisseurship.

So provenance is...

that's getting to where it came from, yes?

Provenance is the history of it,

it includes conservation done to it.

People emphasize the sale,

but they should also focus
on the conservation

and other things that were
done throughout its history.

Tell me about the connoisseurship side.

Connoisseurship is the oldest
of all the practices.

It's looking at the painting...

Does it correspond with
the style of the artist?

Does it have that air,
that aura, that says,

"This is... this is it.

"This is the brush stroke.
This is the... the content...

the subject matter is correct."

On the forensic side, there's
a lot of new developments.

A lot of this technology

being brought in
to identifying, attributing,

authenticating works of art

are technologies that were initially done

for other industries.

Traditionally, understanding a work of art

has been the world of the art historian,

the curator.

And with conservators and scientists

becoming involved
in the museum environment,

we're finding that

conservators have a certain perspective

and scientists also can have a perspective

that is valid and different.

And so, these three different areas

have complementary skills.

So using that investigative platform

how would you go back in now

and look at Elmyr, the master criminal?

From the provenance side,
we would look at dealers

in the cities matching with
the cities he lived in.

Then see if you can find
records of their operations

with, say, a sales receipt,

a purchase receipt.

I think a big difference between

a forger in Elmyr's day and a forger today

is Elmyr could fake his identity

and have an easier time
getting away with it

because, you know, there was no Internet,

there was no mass media in the same way.

So Elmyr could present himself

in San Francisco and have one alias,

then he might be in Texas
or Miami with another alias,

and he just might not be discovered.

I think it's much harder to do that today,

but not impossible.

On the connoisseurship side,
if you deal a lot in those works

you get an eye, you pick up on things.

You get a feel for the artist.

And so, dealers can weed that out.

We look for style,

signature, medium.

The second thing we're gonna do
is once we document

those particular aspects of a painting

we're gonna start our research.

And the first thing
we're gonna look for is history.

We're gonna look at catalog raisonnés.

Is the piece in a catalog raisonné?

We're gonna look, uh,

to see if there's any literary references.

We're gonna look at exhibition history.

Has the piece ever been on exhibition?

Is there record of it
ever being on exhibition?

Thirdly, we're gonna
look at the provenance.

Where did the piece come from?

If there's no traceable
evidence of acquisition,

that does create a red flag.

What's your feeling looking at it now?

I'd have to say, well,

the color scheme

and the composition

do appear similar to Leger's other studies.

The actual execution, from a gut feeling,

doesn't appear to be in the hand of Leger.

- You're suspicious?
- Yes, I-I'm very suspicious.

Now, in the forensics, it's more difficult

because a lot of these paints
were used by the same artist.

In forgeries or in something
that has been over-restored,

people will use something
that is not necessarily made

at the right time for that artist.

So, for example, somebody
forging a Botticelli painting

might have used Prussian blue.

That's a blue pigment that wasn't available

until several centuries
after the artist had died.

But on the painting, it looks right.

And so, they'll use it.

And afterwards scientists can come along

and identify that the blue pigment

is not azurite or ultra marine
as it should be,

but it is Prussian blue.

And using instruments

that have helped us identify
pigments more carefully,

infrared spectrometry's
been developed to a new level,

and we can take
very small amounts of material

and collect a very good spectrum,

and then connect that to a library

and we can identify pigments that way.

Also, at Harvard, we've
developed a technique called

Laser Desorption
Ionization Mass Spectrometry.

And it's a technique

where you'll put a sample
of pigment on a plate,

zap it with a laser,

and that will volatilize it,
put it into a mass spectrometer,

and then those very complicated
organic molecules

that are used for modern paint
can be identified.

And if we want to understand Elmyr,

don't we sort of have to understand,

I guess it would be his MO?
Why he did what he did?

Why not be a real legit artist
and why do this life of crime?

Yeah.

-How would we go about that?
What would you suggest?

If we study the person,

his profile, his upbringing,
his background.

Social economic upbringing,

where he comes from.

It sounds like you're
suggesting we go to Budapest.

Budapest, we'll learn about the history

of that period in which he comes up.

He has an upbringing,
he has an art education.

You know, what does
he do to be able to survive?

He changes his name.

That's very common in Jewish people

who went through the Holocaust

- Right.
- ...and survived.

But that experience is so heavy

that it can create a person
in a certain mold.

And from that, we'll be
able to know him better

and understand why it was
so easy for him to just

turn away from being an artist himself

and just flaunt it with forgeries

to fund a lifestyle.

Yet our intention is to find out the truth.

Find out the truth

and separate the fake from the real.

I knew that Elmyr was
a very talented faker,

who had a very adventurous life,

and who was a very special character.

But we didn't know very much
about what happened to him

when he live before here in Hungary.

His original name was Hoffmann Elemer.

In Hungarian we change
the order of the names,

we put surname first
and then we put given name.

At the turn of the century,

there was a flourishing
artistic colony in Transylvania.

It was called the Nagybanya colony.

That-that beautiful, lovely
little Transylvanian village.

The translation actually of this village

is "Huge Mine," Nagybanya.

This is a place where later,

which Elmyr attended himself, too,

for this was a really controversial time

after the First War until the beginning

of the Second World War.

Plenty of new art, unions,

organizations were established.

A lot of kitschy paintings appeared.

There was a huge battle against

all these kitschy things that
appeared on the market.

But it was a very good works as well.

There was also a little revival
of avant-gardism.

So Elmyr had lots of...
lots of inspiration,

and lots of... lots of impact, I think,

on his artistic, character. - Yes.

And perhaps, I think this
could be a reason why he felt

a little bit overwhelmed or maybe...

Overwhelmed by other artists
that were better maybe?

Yes, or maybe he felt that the level

to be reached is too high. - Yes.

And maybe it just blocked him

and that's why he turned to faking things

and not, uh, not living
his own artistic career.

Or maybe more deeper part of his character,

a more colorful and more "liar" character.

So this art camp,

or we call it art colony
or artists' colony,

it has a very rich heritage
in this country.

Very famous artists' colonies

like the Nagybanya artists' colony,

it was a kind of intellectual circle.

And not only the physical space,
but the common thinking.

But at the same time trying to,

uh, to produce artworks that can be

distinguished from other influence

and other area of thinking.

Because everything was basically
happening here on the spot.

And there's a very more...
very important aspect

of being a member of a...
of a regular artist colony

like Nagybanya
and many others in this country.

Because it was a kind of brand,

as a brand it gave you prestige.

You belonged to a certain
intellectual circle

that could give you some more support.

To be a forger is a very
strange psychological situation.

To be someone and to be
someone else at the same time.

But they need to expose themselves.

The forgers himself or themselves

want to be seen somehow.

Not as a forger, but as some,
as the producer of the work.

Yeah, the surface is old, lot of cracks

on the surface of the color.

Sometimes I see some bubbles, too.

It means this color is not 100 years old.

The paint is very creamy.

And I'm not able to see

small grains inside.

When we talk about art
and when we love art,

we love the history,
that which is not seen.

We love that it was painted
by someone who we love.

We love Monet.

We love Tiziano. We love Picasso.

This is a part of this whole things

that we... we believe as art.

Several times, I see artificial aging...

frothing, make it dirty,
and so on and so on.

When something suddenly
proof to be forgery,

this is an attack

of this kind of knowledge
and this kind of belief

in... in our personality.

And this is something
that's very, very difficult

to... to cure.

Forgery must be served
as fresh as possible.

So the next day is not as good.

The original things are...

have the same quality every time.

And gives you new questions.

They have new inspirations,

even at its young, 500 years old.

But you see that, yes,

there is still some power.

A hair.

Maybe the hair of the artist. Here.

It's so funny.

The forgeries unveil themselves,

by themselves, automatically.

This is the time... the time executes

the forgeries after some years.

We go step by step and measure
each color with XRF gun,

and later on we got
the chemical components.

So, at first, I will measure the red one.

On red area, we need to find

phosphor with mercury or red lead.

On the white surface, cadmium yellow.

And what is the most important
that on white area

it mustn't be titanium white

if this artwork was painted later on.

So it must be lead white,

a kind of mixture with zinc white.

I think that, yes, in aesthetical sense,

the perfect forgery can be produced.

But art-historically sense,
it's impossible.

So it's not 100 years old. I'm sure.

Now you see, oh, it's very easy
to see yes, it's Elmyr de Hory.

Why did collectors of the 1950s
didn't see that it's bad things?

Because they were living at that time.

And the forgeries were prepared

for the taste of that time.

Yeah, maybe the paper was much more older.

I think that even today, even this moment,

some corner of the world,

a good quality forged painting is,

uh, made.

I'd say 50.

This painting around 50 or 60 years old.

And if someone ask if there are forgeries

in an art collection,
the Hungarian National Gallery,

I would say that as much as I know,

today, we don't know about forgeries,

but there might be in 100 years.

So, for me, this whole research

was very interesting because, when we met,

we started to investigate a bit...

a little bit more deeper,

we started to dig a little bit more deeper,

here in Hungary,
in the archives, in databases.

And that opened another

or maybe more deeper part of his character,

more colorful and more "liar" character.

I'm not sure that it's here
but I can't really imagine

another Hoffmann Elemer at the same time.

And it says that, uh...

that, uh, there was a...

The story goes back to, uh, the last year

when there was a huge case,

that Hoffmann Elemer...
Elmyr Hoffmann... the painter,

was punished by...

was arrested by the police

because of stealing something.

The...

And later, against this artist,

Zita Perczel, who was...

was the actress of...

Hungarian theater.

Yes, we found something
very interesting about Elmyr

in an archive.

Uh, a newspaper article, actually.

And it was about
a very interesting story that,

once he painted a portrait of an actress.

And while painting this actress

in the apartment of her family,

when they didn't pay attention, he just

took a few things away.

He has stolen a few things away,

like silver things and jewelries.

And of course, the parents
of this actress discovered,

and discovered that he was
a thief basically.

And they went to the police.

The police investigated,
they found everything

in Elmyr's flat.

All the silver, all the jewelries.

And of course, he was arrested.

It's a funny story, I think. No?

And he told that, "Well,

those were very, very strange times."

He doesn't exactly remember
what happened in those times.

Probably, it all happened
because he was in Serbia

when the King was killed.

And he was arrested then
because they thought he's a spy.

And he was even treated with morphine.

And even Prince Joseph
can tell that it was truth

because while he was painting his portrait

he was treated with morphine

because he was so extremely exhausted

and excited and... and sick, so...

And his lawyer ask him to...

to examine his state of mind.

Whether he's...

he has some psychological problems.

And then I proceeded to France, to Paris

where I studied under Fernand Leger

at Academie la Grande Chaumiere.

And I must... I must also add that

in this article, we could read that

he was punished

and he was arrested before several times.

Not only in Budapest,

but also in London, in Zurich,
and other European cities.

Actually, this is something that he denied,

and told that his passport was stolen.

And someone under his name
committed these crimes.

When all of the other people sort of

tried to get over the Atlantic,

I returned to... I returned to Budapest.

Just imagine what it's like,
you're in France,

war's about to break out.

The French are getting
a little excited because,

all of a sudden, they realize,

"Well, if there's Germans coming in

"then everybody with a Germanic background

is gonna be suspect."

So they are already starting
to put people in prison.

If Hungary's his home,

then the natural thing
to do is go back home.

Elmyr goes back to Hungary.
And Hungary's far away.

So, technically speaking,
it's also a point of escape,

and he is a mischievous,
opportunistic person

based on the background
that we've come to know of him,

so I think, honestly,
it was the right choice for him,

and he probably felt that
being back in the homestead

would allow him to sort of
regroup and figure out

what the next step would be.

The war broke out.

And the stories around, uh,

he is staying in this concentration camp

are very questionable.

But clearly, if it's before 1944,

then obviously
it's the Hungarian authorities.

He explains that, um...

he was injured.

His leg, I think his leg was broken,

and he was sent to hospital.

This... this didn't happen in those times.

You think that somebody
like Elmyr might realize that

his background could work against him,

but it can also work for him.

The International Tracing Service

is really about anybody who disappeared

or who went missing.

The fact that we do have
so many Hungarian names

is predicated both in part

because of the Budapest situation,

but also because
so many deportations occurred.

And once you cross the "border,"

and face incarceration in a camp,

then, your name will surface.

In other words, you have to be in a prison,

you have to be in a camp,

you have to be in a place where
you're gonna be registered.

So we use this card index, uh,

to see if we can find anything
on Elmyr's family.

'Cause if we start to look archives,

we mustn't use his
invented name, Elmyr de Hory,

but we must use,
of course, his original name,

Hoffmann Elemer.

Now, they did confirm the mother,

they confirmed that he had a family.

And also another relative,

a relative's grave was mentioned

in the letter who was called Adin.

But we couldn't go too much beyond that.

It's only if he, uh, somehow
just fell off the radar screen,

and he wouldn't be, uh, listed.

But people like Istvan and Elmyr,

at this point, were sort of
looking at them as a duo,

that enable one another to do things.

More illicit than licit.

And those are the kinds
of people, frankly, who,

wake up interests in intelligence agencies.

And if his talents
are known even to Istvan,

and if Istvan is close to the Germans

for whatever reasons,

then that's the kind of message
that doesn't go unheeded.

Because, by the early '40s...

which is really the foreign
counter-intelligence arm

of German secret service
is looking for people like that,

because they need
fake passports, fake visas,

and if you have
skilled individuals like Elmyr

who were available,

then they're likely to recruit them.

"I was taught to question everything."

-Who knows? What is it?
What makes you travel?

You want to change your landscape,

you want to meet new people,
you want to meet new faces.

You think you'll meet
somebody more attractive

in the next town.

'Cause you met there. You never know why...

why people travel.

A titled Englishwoman
walked in one day to my room,

and she saw on the wall...
pinned on the wall a drawing.

And say, "Hey, where you got that Picasso?"

I say, "Well, do you think it's a Picasso?"

She say, "Well, I know enough about Picasso

to know whether it's a Picasso or not."

I say, "Fine."

She say, "Would you sell it?"
I say, "Well, delighted."

So she says, "Well, how much?"
Well, I can't remember saying.

I think 50 pounds, I think she offered me.

And I did sell it to her.

I didn't feel good about. She was a friend.

But the 50 pound helped me a great deal,

because it was the day
of the payment for the rent,

and I didn't have the money for the rent.

I need to take it out of the frame,

but it's pretty rigid.

So I think there may be
another canvas attached to that

which would prevent me from
seeing the back of the original.

Yeah, it has that feel.

If a painting's been torn badly,
if a painting is flaking...

if it's been terribly buckled, crimpled up,

to put it back in a single plane
to consolidate the paint film.

Linings have also been done, um...

Perhaps to disguise the back
of the original painting.

Let's take a look

in ultraviolet light, to get a good look.

Um, the varnish...

is fluorescing, which indicates
it's been on there for a while.

If it's been in a restorer's hands

this might well be the restoration varnish.

It's uneven.

And the hair, the pigment in the hair,

fluoresces the same way the signature does.

So it certainly suggests that it is

similar paint to that hair.

Now we do think this is, uh, Elmyr de Hory.

- Oh.
- Um, it is very good.

- Yes.
- And, uh...

however, ultimately,
to fool the eye even more...

- Yes.
- ...this is passed off

as a print.

If you look at this image, you'll see

lines, and they form
a very pleasant face...

- Yes.
- ...of a woman.

And what else do you see?

- Oh, I see a signature.
- Yeah.

- We see it's a series.
- Mm-hmm.

- It says 23-50.
- Okay.

So the edition is 50,
there's 50 in existence,

and this is the 23rd.

Now, lithographs
are print making technique.

You think of a Crayola crayon

drived across a paper with texture

what happens to the little bits
of Crayola crayon?

Well, they stay on the paper.

Yeah, on the high
points, on the high points.

When you're drawing with a wax crayon,

the longer you draw... - Yeah.

...the softer the wax gets
and the darker the line.

So what you generally see
is an accumulation of

more and more crayon
on to the surface of the paper.

So let's follow this line down.

Matisse drawings,

line were never that sure as mine.

He was hesitant.

These are very long complex lines.

- Yeah, that's a very long line.
- Look at that.

That is a long line.

And it's a lot of
confidence in doing that...

with that starting it and finishing.

You think he understood that...
This line right here.

- Oh, that went on for a while.
- Yep.

And we can see it ends over here,

just when it gets really warm.
- Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a very confident hand.

That's extremely confident hand.

I want to write uniquely
and exclusively of my work.

And I think my work is good enough

and is serious enough
to give pleasure and joy

to the people who will acquire them.

Yes, I have too many girls.

They have to put up with... how many?

One, with... two, three, four, five.

Two boys and five girls.

It's a hard... it's a hard profession.

I met Elmyr in Palm Springs,
California, in 1964.

I was involved with Sascha Brastoff...

very popular in Southern California,

most known for his
ceramics and his jewelry,

gold jewelry and that...
and the Liberace, the pianist...

and Howard Shoup,

the high style fashion designer for MGM.

And also for Judy Garland,

did all of Judy Garland's costumes

for the Judy Garland television series.

The three of them had a gallery
called the Esplanade

in Westwood, California.

It was kinda like the "in"
gallery at the time,

mainly because of the namesakes
of the ownership.

We had one of the most
unique meetings with Elmyr

at a little restaurant called the Matador,

a little Spanish restaurant which was

a favorite hangout for a lot
of celebrity people and that.

And, uh, the meeting was based on the idea

of Elmyr having an exhibition of
his own work at the Esplanade.

Very unexpectedly,

in that meeting in the conversations,

uh, the idea of his reputation
being affiliated

with fake or fraudulent art
had come up in conversation.

Prior to that, I had no true knowledge

of it or anything, but, you know, as a...

an art collector, art dealer,
art appraiser and so forth,

I kinda related to that portion

in that conversation very deeply.

And I said, "My goodness.
Isn't this something?"

I was first introduced
to Elmyr de Hory's work

as a little girl

when I would visit Mother's

friends in Palm Beach or perhaps Miami,

and it just seemed every great house

had a de Hory or two

juxtaposed amongst all of these
other fabulous collections

of authentic, original paintings.

And I was rather brazen,
curious, outspoken child, then.

I had to be...

have my enthusiasm curbed, so to speak.

You know, to not be
so terribly rude as to ask,

"Which one is the de Hory?
Which one is the fake?"

Elmyr offers us a chance

to look at how decisions were made,

and to understand with...
where we might have gone wrong,

where a forger can get in there

and take advantage of a certain system.

Agnes Mongan was somebody who started

at a junior level in the museum
and worked her way up

to eventually be
the director of the museum.

In a world at that time
that was dominated by men,

she was an important female figure

and an inspiration for many.

She had these drawings
that were in her collection.

Um, she had access
to the Conservation Department

and all the facilities there.

What the drawings had was,

that they were made of materials

that were all available to the artist.

And so, any scientific approach
to try and identify

the materials used on the drawings

would not have yielded any evidence

whether they are real or not.

Again, they contain a veneer of something

that looks genuine.

But when you spend
a lot of time looking at them,

there's something missing.

In this instance,
it's the connoisseurship leg

of the stool that came away

and unbalanced this tripod.

You know, she had the eye.

You know, she was able to
look at these and say,

"There's something
wrong with these drawings.

They don't look right."

- If we, at first glance...
- Yes.

...as we look at this, our eyes immediately

make the connections, recognize the image.

And it says to us,
"This is... this is Matisse.

"In fact, here's Matisse, right back here

looking in" and this would...

this is a very exciting drawing. - Yeah.

So that. And it's signed,
"Henri Matisse, 1935."

Everything is right about it
in terms of materials.

The ink is right. He used a dip pen.

Uh, the characteristics
of the lines are correct.

It is on an artist paper, um,

that is like the, uh,
paper used by Matisse.

There's some writing on the back.

We do have a watermark
on here, too, right here.

We know that Matisse
did use MBM France paper.

However, there is a little red flag here.

Yes?

Perrigo. J Perrigo would appear...

was never used by Matisse.

Interestingly enough,

Perrigo arche was sold in Australia.

- Oh.
- Oh!

So, tell me about art in your life?

Did you grow up with it
or how did it enter your life?

I grew up in a castle.

So there must have been lots of it.

We got a few Modigliani's

I've got a Marie Laurencin,
which I think you've seen.

I got a couple of Dufy's.

And, uh, Picasso, which I don't think...

masters it.

And the lady here...
who we can't mention...

she bought a huge collection.

And then when they had a few problems,

somehow or other I ended up
with the collection at a price.

But as you know, he didn't make much monies

doing his own stuff.

So, then whoever it was
started making him...

not copy, but make one more.

So, let's say there are 100 Picasso's,

there must be 150 nowadays.

They're fakes, aren't they?
They're not forgeries.

Because they are not copies,
they're just one more.

So, like, if you... if Dufy painted...

20, now there are 50.

Where he didn't...
he didn't copy precisely,

but, I mean, as you well know
he used the right paper,

he used the right... whatever had to be.

But he was brilliant, I think.

And they say, "Oh, he never
signed Dufy or Picasso."

That's rubbish.

Some of the widows, they still were alive

and they knew they were not even aware

of what the husbands had done.

And he would just pay them a little bit,

and then they would just
sign a document saying,

"Yes, my husband painted this."

And that was it,
it was not that much research.

When I came to Ibiza for the first time,

the reason was, in the times of Franco,

there was a lot of repression.

Uh, here was a place with total freedom,

completely virgin,
very poor, very poor island,

but because of poverty,
it was absolutely beautiful.

We were living without
electricity and running water

in the country.

Ibiza, nobody knew about it, really.

It was like to get there
the access was like, you know,

you'd fly in a little plane,
the airport was a tiny hut.

The place was so beautiful and so utopian,

that everybody had the need
to create something out of that.

There was... it was quite extraordinary.

And in those days, in the '60s,
you had, um...

what you had if Franco was alive.

So, you had basically all the criminals

who were being sought after
by Interpol or whatever

living on that island.

You had Nazis.

You had, uh, conmen. You had everything.

And in fact, you know, well,
the police force in the island

were dressed in remnants
of the Afrika Korps.

'Cause Spain in the '60s
and '70s was, you know,

the church, and, uh,
it wasn't like it is now.

They were like 40 years behind.

The group of people in Ibiza
was called a family.

They were all black sheeps
escaping from our families.

And we created the family here.

It was a beautiful island.

It was a wonderfully magic time, actually.

It was a fantastic time.

In retrospect, it seems
incredibly innocent.

One of my uncles had a lover

called Angeles de la Vega.

When I arrived to Ibiza,
there was a woman...

she's still alive... called Arlene.

An American woman.
She opened a bar, La Tierra.

It would be a little bit like
the Rick's in "Casablanca."

You see people there you knew
from all over the world.

The bar was fantastic.

It was a meeting point after dinner.

It was run by...

a Jewish American lady
named Arlene Kaufman.

She spoke Spanish impeccably.

Grammatically, but with a Brooklyn accent.

So, it was...

I mean, it was...

And she was a fantastic DJ.

Not "Chumba, Chumba, Chumba," but I mean

the best music you ever heard
was Arlene in La Tierra.

The first day I arrived to Ibiza,

of course, I go to La Tierra.

Angeles de la Vega,

she had a bar next called

La Sirena Gorda, The Fat Mermaid.

She was fat also.

"Come, sit down, let's talk."

Then I realize she was the lover...

had been the lover of my uncle Oliveras.

I was really young

and looking quite good.

So she took me to Elmyr's house

as a sexual present.

I wanted to kill her.

I arrive there,
completely naive, I didn't know.

Elmyr already was...

he always looked like
a very old man to me, you know?

I never met Elmyr very young.

He had white hair, small,

with glasses sometimes, you know?

And I remember, there was
like a sculpture...

a white sculpture of a mermaid

with a male sex.

And I was waiting like this,
and suddenly I realize

I was against that funny sculpture.

"What? No problem."

Uh, Elmyr understood perfectly

that I was not going to be there

for what Angeles thought.

And we became good friends.

Elmyr's house, La Falaise,
was very beautiful.

And he invited me to his villa...

his rented villa in Ibiza,

which I really enjoyed.

And the funny thing about staying there

was that you never saw him
early in the morning.

His routine was to get up at dawn.

And there was one...

it was like a sort of garage,
and he used to work in there.

The one thing was banned.

He made it very clear,

"You are not allowed into that room.

That room was a secret."

And that's where he painted, you know,

until about lunch time.

There were a lot of artists
in Ibiza in those days.

That was a very...

It was very much a center of activity...

of creative activity.

There was a lot going on.

And then, he would go down to Ibiza Town

where he was a great character.
People loved him.

And, you know, he would sit
at his favorite bar

and have a coffee and people would say,

"Hi, Elmyr."

-He had a way in court.
I run him in the Montesol.

We met in that café...

whatever the cafe's called... in Ibiza.

This is a picture that Elmyr
did when we were both in,

uh, Ibiza Town.

And he was sitting at a café,
as he always did,

particularly on a Saturday morning.

And, you know, I suddenly
noticed he was doing a drawing,

and it turned out that he was sketching me

with this rather ridiculous hat.

And, um, and afterwards,

he tore it off and gave it to me,

and I'm rather proud of it.

Always when he was
having a drink there or...

coffee or lunch,

there was a lot of people
sitting around him.

So, tomorrow. The party is a big party.

So, don't miss it tomorrow. - What time?

- 8:00.
- Thank you very much, Elmyr.

And he was inviting everyone

who'd like to have a drink or whatever.

So it was incredible.

He was adorable. He was very small.

And he had the mind of his own
as you well know.

He was... he was giving fabulous party.

Everybody was received like princes.

And you were living in another world.

Of course they had no money problem.

Anybody wants to eat?

He liked to pay with people
from the European aristocracy.

They were the people
who really knew who he was,

and he knew who they were.

And somehow that was his playground.

He enjoyed being with those people,

that's who he wanted acknowledgment from.

He knew the whole
French community in Ibiza.

He knew Jacqueline de Ribes.
He knew my uncle...

He, uh, he knew...

And he had many friends.

He had... Ursula Andress was
a very good friend of his.

He knew Roman Polanski. He was
a very good friend of his.

Fernando Ray, the actor.

I used to see him
with a lot of friends like

Countess Jacqueline de Ribes,

who was nominated more...
most elegant woman in the world.

Smilja Mihailovich
was an incredible personage

and a very good friend of Elmyr, but...

it was fantastic because Smilja

was married to a taxi driver.

When she comes here,

and we don't know why she comes here,

she pretends she's a princess.

But they used to talk

in Hungarian or in Yugoslavian,

and they were insulting each other.

It was fantastic.

I remember her saying...

It's like, "Fuck you," to him.

And in French he was saying...

"Princess of my ass," you know.

Was incredible because
they were very good friends,

but they were fighting all the time.

He didn't seem to care a great deal

about the art scene that was going on.

I mean, he was interested, but it wasn't...

wasn't like he was going
to be participant in it.

Pacha organizes a party for cancer.

And there was an auction

and Elmyr gave us a painting.

And the painting is in the book of Pacha,

the photo with him.

And the painting is quite ugly.

Because he was fantastic...

Fantastic, but when he
was supposed to do something

it was four flowers and not very good.

But there's some forgers
who can copy very well,

and then they have their own style.

He didn't have his own style.

I think he had an extremely
profound understanding

of what other artists have done.

I don't think he had
the same desperate need

or commitment to realize that in himself.

And the fantastic thing of Elmyr,

he was unique in this world,

he was inventing.

I mean, you would see this is a Matisse,

this is a Picasso, this is a Chagall,

this is a Renoir.

Even Picasso would have said,
"This is mine."

Sometimes in art, talent is the first thing

that has to be transcended.

It's when you go beyond your talent

and you go beyond what you know

or what is known,

that it starts to become meaningful

and starts to become valued.

I believe he was in jail,
I mean, for a brief time.

After, you know, when he
was in the papers and all that,

I don't remember in what year,
but then they knew.

I don't think he knew,

his paintings were going to
museums as fakes and all that,

and when he finds out, I think it's when

the bad thing started, too.

His work was at, you know,

the collection of Algur Meadows,
and the Perls,

and, you know, it's like
all scattered around.

- Not as Elmyr's.
- No, not as Elmyr.

Mr. Meadows, how did you happen
get into French modern art

and where did you start buying that?

In 1961, my wife passed away.

In 1962, I married my present wife.

On our honeymoon,
which lasted about six months,

our first stop was Paris.

We went to several galleries

and looking for rounded face.

And we found about seven altogether.

Six or seven, and we bought them all.

Well, besides buying in galleries

did you get paintings any other way?

Uh, you... you mean,
about the two Frenchmen?

That's another story.

In 1964, my wife called me at the office,

and said that, uh...

a friend of hers has asked
two Frenchman to come over

and show us their...
some paintings they had for sale

they had brought from Paris.

"And they want to come at 4:00.
Can you come home early?"

I said, "The very idea. You wouldn't invite

peddlers or strangers into our home."

I said, "No, I won't come home at 4:00."

But I did come home at 6:00,

and the dealers were there.

And they had, uh,
from the back of their car,

they had taken out some six...
five or six paintings

and had them standing all around the car.

And so they introduced themselves,

and they appeared to be...

gentlemen and...

Then I said, "Well, since you came anyway,

bring the paintings out in the house."

Yes. They had certificates.

Signed by, uh, experts,

appointed by the French government

to authenticate such paintings.

And besides they had evidence that they...

these particular paintings
had been purchased

from one of the outstanding
auction houses in, uh,

this country.

I met Mr. Meadows' American attorneys.

I don't remember if you find

his complaint before the exam

before the French justice...

through me or through the US consulate.

What despair from...

what you gave me is that it was fine

against "X,"

which means for the US
it would mean "A-Y-Z," huh?

Right. Mr. Smith,
there's something John Doe.

Yeah, John Doe. Exactly.

- And why did he do that? Why?
- Because, uh...

there's two ways to trigger.

I need to examination,

by an examining judge.

One way is to do it
against the designated party,

in which case...

you have to file a bond. - Right.

If you find against "X,"

then it is up to
the French examining judge.

The examining judge is going
to investigate the case...

will decide, uh...

whether or not John Doe
is going to stand trial.

Art cases are... they cause
problems for the courts.

The courts are not fans of having to decide

art authenticity cases.

Ultimately any case
you're gonna be able to bring

in any kind of court,

it is gonna have some proof of fraud.

And so, you're gonna
have to prove the elements,

uh, same as in any other case...
a loss of...

some type of loss
or profit or loss of money,

something valuable,

dependence on the information
to make that decision,

and the victim.

So, those are the things
you're gonna have to show.

And in case of Elmyr at the time,

that's what Meadows would have had to prove

in his court proceedings.

So, for a judge to come in and say,

"I think this work is or is not authentic,"

has ramifications.

And courts don't wanna be.

They don't wanna make those ramifications.

They don't want to be market makers.

Particularly for something that they feel

uncomfortable analyzing.

For the next two years,

they came to Dallas 10 or 12 times,

each time bringing different paintings.

- And you kept buying?
- I kept buying.

Uh, did you buy,
two, three, four at a time?

Two, three, four, sometimes eight.

What kind of money
are we talking about here?

Oh, well... the first...

the first deal was perhaps, uh,

$70,000 or $80,000.

All together...

$600,000 perhaps.

I think there was
an international search warrant.

Legros I believe was, uh...

arrested in Switzerland.

When you have an international warrant,

it's cooperation between the two states.

The French asked that, uh,

Legros be extradited from Switzerland.

Yes, Swiss had a similar system
to the French one

and you can be...

put temporarily in jail

or obliged to stay in a hotel

until such a time as the Swiss authorities

will make a decision.

Then even the French courts

at that point are still
having to continue a petition.

- Yeah.
- That's not guaranteed.

No, no.

Elmyr, strangely enough,

I don't remember him
telling the French case

which was really directed against Legros.

It's not illegal to paint something

in the style of another artist.

Where you cross the line is if
you sign that artist's name

and you're not that artist.

I don't think he knew

his paintings were going to museums

as fakes and all that.

And when he finds out, I think it's when

the bad things started.

Well, we found, uh,

some records that show that Elmyr

had a painting

lent to a friend

who decided to put it
on consignment with Knoedler.

What we do know is that
the forgery by Elmyr de Hory,

it was sold for $60,000 in 1958.

Knoedler is...

it wasthe oldest and the most prestigious

gallery in America.

Prestige, I guess, is a qualitative term,

certainly by many accounts.

Lookit. Lookit.

Expose the man who holds the art world

on red hot threads.

People were not giving a shit in Ibiza

about what Elmyr was doing.

He was very well liked in Ibiza,

because he was an outlaw.

He enjoyed his celebrity a great deal.

And the fact that it was based on notoriety

didn't seem to faze him.

He started doing that same painting.

I mean, he would do a bigger hour of...

whatever, you know, a Modigliani.

And he would sign their name.

And then he would sign "by Elmyr."

So, that he couldn't be charged with fraud

and selling a fake.

But at the same time

it was... it was a real fake.

It was authenticated by his own signature.

He became a star over night

with his wonderful pictures.

Picasso would get for something
like that of, uh...

$15,000, $20,000.

I will sell it for less.

And years to come, he said to me

when we were walking
down past the Royal Academy,

he said that you'll find an Elmyr

in nearly very major collection
in the world.

I would like to see
that poor Hungarian refugee

who would have resisted
of that... of that temptation.

All his life he was in flight,

and running away... not the police,

but he was running away from
the people he was involved with,

like Fernand Legros
and two other art dealers

who were after him.

Do you know anything about those threats

that he received at least?

Well, uh...

I remember when they killed his dog.

They hang him on a tree.

I think there was
a paper saying that next...

"The next will be you."

I mean, he was like really cornered.

And one day Elmyr

arrived like usual
to the terrace of the Montesol

with his hippie bag, and saying...

We thought he was making a joke.

I had breakfast with him

the day before he died at the Montesol.

And he said that... we all knew then that

they were trying to extradite him

and stand charges again, and he said, "No.

I will never spend another day in jail."

He said, "If they... if I know
they're coming for me,

"when they make the decision...

"if they're coming for me,
I'll kill myself.

They will not get me."

And he did.

I think after many years of running

away from the law and the lawyers

and people who wanted to hurt him...

and I think he had just a moment of panic.

And I just...

It's a shame because
you know he was really...

I mean, he was not going to be
jailed or extradited.

Or even some people say

Elmyr did not died and he escape.

The rumor is he was trying
not to go to jail.

And pretend a suicide

and then the ambulance will arrive

then he will be okay.

They have to be somewhere.

Normally they, the 44 works that were...

were fake should have been destroyed.

This is mean that there is few of fake

on the market.

That's incredible.

Incredible.

I don't think Elmyr gets
any great pass just by saying,

"You know, what I did was really good

and therefore it's beautiful, so it's art."

If he... if he really believed that,

he could have signed everything "de Hory."

-I feel that you should burn it.
We burn everything...

but myself.

It's been said that beauty is truth

and truth beauty.

But doesn't Elmyr's work blur that line?

His works were his own creation,

executed brilliantly "in the style of."

At the very least,
doesn't his life demonstrate

him to be undeniably a true original?

But perhaps what is most troubling

is that we are left to judge,

exercising our own moral compass,

empowering our own aesthetic,

to offer opinion on beauty,

truth, value.

We may never know how many works he created

during his career,

nor how deeply they have penetrated

galleries, museums, private collections.

And we have no way of truly anticipating

his continued impact on the art market.

But one thing is certain,

Elmyr de Hory will forever
influence how we look upon art.

And in that, he has ensured
himself a page in art history

as an accomplished, celebrated real fake.

- ♪ What you think now? ♪
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♪ What you feel now? ♪

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♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Your love is for real now ♪

♪ You know, it's your love and my love ♪

♪ And my love is your love ♪

♪ Our love is here to stay ♪

♪ What you think now? ♪

♪ I think I love you ♪

♪ What you feel now? ♪

♪ I feel I need you ♪

♪ What you know ♪

♪ To be real? ♪

♪ What you think now? ♪

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♪ What you feel now? ♪

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♪ To be real ♪