The Forger's Apprentice: Life with the World's Most Notorious Artist

by Mark Forgy

  Their reunion in the airport bar was brief and businesslike. Fernand returned to Paris with little or no thought given to his recent troubles. Elmyr returned to Ibiza, and that was all he was able to ponder. A week later, a despondent Elmyr received unwelcome news from his local bank that Fernand’s check had bounced. Anger displaced his melancholy when he realized he was again almost penniless. He called Legros in Paris. “Bonjour, mon cher,” Fernand bubbled with the consciencefree gaiety of a sociopath whose basement floor covers the bodies of mysteriously missing people. “Don’t mon cher me, you son of a bitch. You gave me another of your worthless checks. I’m sorry I ever met you, and I want nothing to do with you ever again!” Elmyr hung up the phone, but Fernand was not one to let someone else have the last word. Several more truncated dialogues ensued before Fernand regained control of the crisis. “I’ll send you another check,” Legros promised. “This time it will be a good one.”

  It is difficult to assess whether Legros’s own finances oscillated as much as Elmyr’s. He made a tremendous amount of money, but his expenditures were enormous. Elmyr told me that when Fernand was together with his longtime partner, they commonly signed checks for each other. The banks routinely returned the checks when the signatures did not match those of the given account. They later sent checks with their proper signatures. It was their personal game of juggling their money and delaying payment. Once, according to Elmyr, Fernand had his friend sign his check for a large bill for tailored suits in Madrid. Then, after one of their frequent quarrels, Fernand filed a criminal complaint against his friend for forging his name to the check, even though the tailor witnessed his asking him to do this.

  That spring of 1967, the auction in Pontoise was approaching, and Fernand still had not received the Vlaminck landscape he had ordered from Elmyr, although he already officially listed it in the forthcoming sale. While he could have withdrawn or exchanged the Vlaminck for another, Fernand elected to check one of the three Parisian warehouses where he stashed his trove of art treasures. In one of the crates, he found a fauve period Vlaminck he thought was about two years old. The goldenhued Rembrandt varnish adorned the canvas, giving it its instantly aged appearance. He promptly submitted it to the auction house. About a week before the sale, the artwork went on display for prospective buyers’ examination. Elmyr’s eyes widened with amazement at this part of the story. He said, “One of the auction house employees thought the Vlaminck apparently looked a little dirty, so he attempted to clean it with a cloth.” When he removed the rag from the picture’s surface, he noticed that some of the paint from the 1906 canvas came off with the dust. This anomaly elicited an immediate call to the police, who promptly confiscated it and the rest of the pictures from Legros.

  Fernand expected the sale to net him around $150,000. Now the gendarmes wanted to net him. As soon as he found out about the incident, he raced to Pontoise, hoping to collect the rest of the pictures. Upon his arrival, he discovered the police had seized the others too, and wanted to speak to their owner. What remained of Fernand’s thinning black hair atop his high forehead, he nearly pulled out in a rare moment of panic. Then, rushing back to his opulent apartment on Avenue Henri Martin, he gathered all his personal files and burned them. His American friend whom he had persuaded to act as the seller of the Pontoise tableaux was now “a person of interest” in a criminal investigation. Together, the two men frantically grabbed items from drawers and closets and threw them into nine large suitcases. Their bulging contents erupted at the seams; sleeves of tailored silk shirts trailed on the ground as the two men carried the suitcases to their getaway car, Legros’s luxury Buick. Tossing the leather luggage into the trunk, resembling thieves fleeing a clothingstore heist, they jumped in the vehicle and sped off, heading south.

  The humor in Elmyr’s voice and the smile on his face showed how much he enjoyed relaying Fernand’s torment of that moment. In an instant, his mood turned serious. “They drove to Barcelona,” he continued, “and took the ferry to Ibiza. I was in Madrid at the time, attending the premiere of Robin Maugham’s play, and knew nothing of their arrival. They broke into the house in my absence and changed the locks on the doors. I later got the bill for that from the carpenter he hired to do it. You can imagine my surprise when I came back to find Legros and his friend living in my home and telling me they were staying a while. I was not at all happy about it.”

  Back in Paris, the police quickly established Legros’s connection to the scandal of the Pontoise auction. His many buyers were probably slapping their foreheads in what must have sounded like thunderclaps announcing the coming storm and uttering in dread, mon dieu! Napoleon, a person whose ego looked circumspect next to Fernand’s, said that Europe ended at the Pyrenees. Now that Legros was south of that mountain range, he felt safe because he never sold any artwork in Spain and mistakenly assumed the authorities would not extradite him for his troubles in France. From the security of the villa, his characteristic pluck and defiance returned, claiming his current setback was the result of his competitors, their rampant petty jealousies, and who had plotted it all just to undermine him.

  Many of Fernand’s young male “concubinage,” as Elmyr described his paid admirers, were once more turning La Falaise into a Turkish brothel. “They were little more than knife-wielding hoodlums,” he said of Legros’s harem with unforgotten alarm, “and I didn’t feel safe in my own home.” Fernand, on the other hand, so enjoyed the freewheeling lifestyle of the island that he put a down payment on a portside building that he felt inspired to turn into a bar, and fittingly planned to call “Sharks.”

  The damage caused by Fernand’s last visit was fresh in his mind. It was also an inherently repugnant notion to Legros that anyone else be happier than he was, so, if he were miserable, he would do his best to make those around him equally miserable. At that time, Elmyr probably would have signed over his soul to any other bloodsucking monster to get Legros and his hyenas off the island. It was now perfectly clear that the dynamic between the two men had irretrievably changed. Fernand’s career as an art dealer essentially ended with the debacle of Pontoise. Both men, aware that the other could no longer be a source of income, saw no need for the phony cordialities that had previously allowed a civil but dysfunctional relationship. Fernand, on the other hand, was far more disposed to instantly dropping the kid-glove treatment of his nowformer partner and showing the bare-knuckle brutality of his nature. Elmyr pleaded with him to leave, that his presence would certainly bring Interpol agents to his front door. Legros not only laughed at his nervous appeal, he responded matter-of-factly that if he went to jail for thirty days, or thirty years, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to take Elmyr with him.

  While Elmyr anguished over the infernal agreement he made with Legros concerning ownership of La Falaise, it now became a battleground in their mutually destructive struggle. The private contract that allowed him lifetime residence and use of the home also stipulated that it be in Legros’s name. He in turn had no legal right to sell the property without Elmyr’s accord. This did not stop him from relinquishing ownership to his former companion to settle a stack of IOUs he held from Fernand. Whoever held the strategic high ground of the villa could then conceivably dump vats of boiling oil on the other two assailants below its stone ramparts.

  Elmyr once again fled the island in desperation. Despite Fernand’s quixotic thought processes and behavior tailored to his personal design, his view of life was uncomplicated. There were no ambiguous shades of gray; everything was black or white. People were either with him or against him. The agility of his mind was perhaps never as evident as in the inventiveness of retributions against his enemies. As if on cue, to aggravate Fernand’s growing sense of isolation and pugnacious nature, his longtime lover showed up to claim Elmyr’s home. He climbed the stone steps to the front door with his notarized contract transferring the villa to him. Within moments of arriving and brandishing his document, Fernand jumped on the interloper like a territorial
tomcat. In the ensuing struggle, Fernand demonstrated he had not forgotten his cabaret kicks. A scratched, bruised, and bitten man fled down the steps and into his car. Grabbing for a souvenir lock of his hair, Fernand reached in through the partially opened car door window and chased him down the driveway before stopping in a cloud of road dust behind the fleeing vehicle.

  The battered escapee drove directly to the police station to file a criminal complaint for assault. When the two appeared before the local judge, Fernand, in his own defense to the charges, told the sober-minded court official, “He used to love it when I bit him.” The humor of this might have disappeared in translation as he was sentenced to two to fifteen days in jail for disturbing the peace. While Legros dutifully reported to the local jail to serve his sentence, his battered victim returned to his hotel to pack his bags and hastily took a cab to the airport rather than share a cell with Fernand.

  Ibiza’s prison, located within the old citadel of Ibiza town, was actually a quaint old building with a sun-filled courtyard. Its incarcerated guests could bring personal effects from home as they liked such as beds, sheets, clothing, chairs, books, etc. They could also have friends or family bring meals into the prison for them. Fernand brought Elmyr’s stereo, records, cashmere sweaters, and tableware from La Falaise to use during his stay. In a seemingly out-of-body experience, he dignified himself as a model prisoner, so they consequently released him two days before the end of his sentence for good behavior. Waving a fond farewell to his fellow inmates and new recipients of his largesse and Elmyr’s belongings, he walked back to La Falaise. His early and unexpected arrival set off a chain of events more in keeping with the real Fernand Legros.

  As he entered the house, he immediately spied some young women sunbathing nude around the pool. Like an unleashed greyhound after a hare, he dashed through the sliding glass door, emitted a blood-curdling scream that caused everyone else to shriek in unison, and chased terrified naked girls around the pool. In an effort to escape the rampaging maniac, one unclothed creature flew through the open front door and down the steps with Fernand in hot pursuit. She had managed to get into her car and start it before Fernand pulled her out, pushed her away, and released the vehicle’s hand brake. Then, happily watching it roll down the driveway, it careened off the road and down a steep hill—crashing into a military barracks and exploding in flames. Thinking they were under attack, soldiers burst out of their quarters and charged up the hill like Marines on Iwo Jima. Sirens from fire trucks racing to the scene brought dumbfounded spectators from their homes in amazement to view the Sunday morning spectacle occurring at the house where Elmyr tried in vain to live discreetly. Enraged by Fernand’s one-man assault on the hung-over poolside guests, the young American, who abetted his escape from France and found himself implicated in the Pontoise scandal, unaffectionately threw the berserk Legros down the steps. Fernand’s screams of rage turned into screams of pain as he grabbed his now-broken ankle. Following the Spanish infantry and fire department were the police and an ambulance. His coming-home party could not have had more panache if he had planned the whole thing himself.

  It would not have surprised Elmyr if Legros set an unbroken record for the shortest time between the release and re-arrest of someone for criminal activity in the lengthy history of Ibiza. Besides the speedy reunion with his somewhat stunned cellmates, the unamused judge seized his portside bar and a $12,000 Chris-Craft speedboat he had brought to the island for compensatory damages.

  It was understandable that his former lover thought it better to be a fugitive from Spanish justice than be incarcerated with his unhinged and combative partner. He nevertheless had the documentation to rightfully assume ownership of the villa and was not about to surrender his claim to the expensive piece of real estate. Despite the daunting prospect of jousting again with Fernand and paying the price of fleeing the long arm of the law, he returned to the island in November. With considerable apprehension, I imagine, he drove up the hilltop road to La Falaise, nervously climbed the stone stairs, and knocked on the door. When Fernand opened it, once more finding his favorite sparring partner standing there, he immediately looked past him for any loitering witnesses and then invited him in.

  Tucked down below the front of the villa in a cluster of trees was the small home of a German woman named Manon. She was one of the earliest foreign residents, lived with about thirty cats, and drank incessantly. According to Elmyr, she had little else to do than lie about drunk and call each of her cats by name all day long. She was also well within earshot of anything occurring at the house and apparently called the police often while Fernand stayed there. Like the haunting refrain of a children’s lullaby, Manon soon heard the familiar strains of The Concerto for Untuned Screams emanating from the villa next door. It was more painful-sounding than serenading alley cats in heat and occasionally punctuated with a crescendo of breaking glass, definitely one of those atonal, dissonant modern pieces that real music lovers abhor. She politely waited for the performance to conclude before calling the police. When they arrived, they seized their fugitive from justice. Fernand stood like a haloed Russian icon pointing his finger at his bleeding but alleged attacker. The two police officers already knew Legros well and received lovely cashmere sweaters from him.

  His friend made the acquaintance of his fellow prisoners in the town jail while serving his previous fifteen-day sentence. Fernand, feeling perhaps a bit remorseful after their scrap the day before, strode confidently into the prison to see how he was enjoying his new accommodations. He arrived not alone, but with a nearby restaurant owner who carried a large pan of paella. His glowering friend stood in the courtyard below. Fernand displayed his charming, toothy smile and shouted down, “I thought you might like a little lunch, so I brought you something. Unfortunately, I changed clothes and left all my money in my other pants. If you could send up three hundred pesetas he says you can have it.” He put three rumpled hundred-peseta bills in a basket, and the food was then lowered to him. “Hope you like it!” Fernand shouted as he left. An echoing riposte of “Screw you!” followed.

  The following day, Fernand left for London. Only later, after Elmyr returned, did he get the staggering bill for all of Fernand’s long-distance phone calls. The most frequent and lengthy conversations were between Legros and his Paris attorney, who kept him apprised of the steadily deteriorating situation in France. His apartment with its red-flocked walls and gold faucets was now gone. His Mid-Eastern affectations and life style of a pasha, so intertwined with his image and ego, vanished. The police had confiscated the artwork and issued an international warrant for his arrest the day he departed the island. What items of Elmyr’s that he did not care to take, he gave away to others. This included a West Highland white terrier given to Elmyr by a friend. None of the material goods stolen from him was as dear as his dog that he left in the care of his housekeeper whenever he was away. It was Fernand’s way of exacting revenge on the man who helped make him rich. His vengefulness did not stop here.

  In a London warehouse, Legros still had a crate of artwork left over from his trip to South Africa. He had his shipping agent send it on to Cairo, his new destination, where he would be safe from extradition. He then flew from the UK to Egypt where, for the next three months, he divided his time between Cairo and the city of his birth, Ismalia. If the French government wanted to cause him problems, he could claim Egyptian citizenship. It was his international safe house.

  For the almost seven months Legros appropriated his island home, Elmyr wandered through Europe. It seemed the newspapers in Switzerland, Germany, and France insistently refreshed people’s memories periodically by publishing the story of the Pontoise scandal, the notorious art dealer Fernand Legros, and discoveries of fake art cropping up in renowned public and private collections. The sensational revelations haunted him wherever he went. The bad news was inescapable. While he had little money left from what his friends had loaned him, he did not dare sell anything. He would have better luck s
elling matches in the middle of a forest fire. Now, the conflagration Legros’s greed ignited threatened to consume him. He felt trapped in a nomadic limbo, at least until Fernand left Ibiza. During his absence from Spain, Elmyr engaged a Parisian attorney to negotiate with Fernand to vacate La Falaise. All the letters and pleading phone calls were unsuccessful, until one day a friend informed him that Fernand had left the house and the island. At last, he could go home.

  In late October, Elmyr once more showed up at the Alhambra Café and Hotel Montesol terraces to catch up on the local gossip. Only now, he was at its center. The French newspaper L’Aurore identified him by name as the painter who had done all the fakes that had the whole art world buzzing. Everyone was eager for more details, but he was suffering an unusual bout of reticence.

  I suspect few places on earth provided as fertile ground for the counterculture values of the swinging sixties as did Ibiza. However open and transparent its atmosphere appeared, the local authorities were every bit as curious about what its residents were doing as was its loquacious café society. Spain was still a very well-informed and organized police state under its omnipotent dictator, Generalissimo Francesco Franco. Elmyr’s activities and growing reputation did not pass unnoticed. One point he consistently stressed for the home crowd was that he never did any fake paintings in Spain and sold nothing there. This was a mantra he uttered repeatedly. I have my suspicions about its veracity, but I cannot be certain. It was more accurately the keystone of his defense to avoid prosecution for criminal activity and expulsion from the country. If the courts could unequivocally disprove his assertion, they would send him to prison. The State, however, could not prosecute him for those crimes without a preponderance of evidence and perhaps, most glaringly, they could produce no witnesses who would corroborate those charges.