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

by Mark Forgy

  I had seen him create works of art, each time inspiring a sense of wonder in me. Whenever he stood before his easel or his sketchbook, his arm, hand, pencil, or brush formed a communion with his breathing. It was as though this autonomic function stopped while his hand was in motion. Since his normal respiration “was loud like a horse,” I once told him, it was discomforting to listen to him. At times, I found myself adopting his halting pattern of inhalation and exhalation and then gasping for air when the pause seemed too long. He was oblivious of this after decades of habit. When I asked how he managed to hold his breath like a Polynesian pearl diver, he laughed and said he learned it when he first started taking art lessons as a boy in Hungary. I told him I thought it was creepy and unnatural. He laughed again and explained how the controlled breathing steadies the hand. His lines and brushwork attested to this. They were sure and unwavering—constructed by design from an unconscious act.

  This was not the only anomalous movement associated with his creative process. His concentration apparently flowed smoothly if, in conjunction with his asymmetrical breathing, he positioned himself just right in front of the easel. He frequently looked to the floor in search of some invisible black shoe silhouettes like those used to teach the dancing-impaired certain steps or like an unsure stage actor constantly looking for his mark indicating where to stand. With one leg positioned behind the other and knees slightly bent like a relaxed fencer preparing for his next duel, he engaged his unresisting adversary, a blank white canvas. His never-divulged strategy showed only as much as he wanted his incremental strokes to reveal. In his left hand he held a clutch of paint-daubed brushes, perhaps a dozen at a time, ranging from those with a few fine bristles to stout ones about an inch wide. Their shafts emerged perpendicularly between the webs of every finger, their bases held firmly in a clenched fist. These were his arsenal of interchangeable tools. Only he knew the proper sequence of their use, all of which conformed to a vision unique to him. The sound emanating from this colorful birthing process was a scratchy, crisp staccato as the brush moved quickly across the tautly woven fabric. A hush fell over the studio when he required a delicate adagio of fine brushwork. For added fidelity of line, he would further steady his hand by balancing it on the canvas with his smallest finger.

  He was a fine art engineer of sorts, no less cerebral than an architect was, but at the same time given an emotional freedom of movement that a wealthy spectrum of color permitted. As any builder tends to dwell on the importance of foundation, his skill as a draftsman was the skeletal structure that supported everything he did. It is what convincingly held together all the musculature and connective tissue of form, line, color, movement, expression—basically all those building blocks that construct figurative art.

  On a table beside his easel was a splattered disarray of semi-crushed tubes of oil paints. He would grab one he wanted and with spontaneous largesse squeeze a dollop of the expensive substance on the interior flat plain of his large wooden palette. Around its edge was a miniature mountain range of dried, age-old paint, now rock hard. From, say, a flea’s perspective, it would look like the Himalayas in psychedelic Technicolor splendor. According to his desire, he amalgamated contrasting colors in that mystical visual alchemy that would mysteriously yield something entirely new that had nothing to do with its original ingredients. It was inspiring magic, and, witnessing the emergence of these works of art, I felt privy to something special. Again, these upclose and personal viewings were generally in conjunction with those moments when he asked me to model for him. Otherwise, my presence in his studio was as unwelcome as the arrival of the police.

  I continually marveled at each visual tour de force he produced with apparent ease. From all his tutelage, volumes of art books, and museum and gallery tours, he showed me that one common thread weaves its way through the history of painting. “Great artists display a facility and command of their métier that make it look simple,” he explained. “If you examine the work of Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens, Goya, Hals, Homer, Delacroix, Lautrec, Monet, and many other masters, you will see in every one a tremendous economy of brush strokes that conveys a powerfully expressive image.” This was his teacher voice, and I was his only student. Elmyr was quick to point out that “their work became increasingly fluid,” the continuity of movement interrupted only to replenish an exhausted brush with more color. This sense of perpetual motion was “most evident in their later works.” Unlike many other pursuits that require a physical rigor, old age was for many of these great artists the culmination of talent, training, experience, and endurance. “Look closely and you will see how transcendent their art becomes when they have completely exploited the potential of their medium,” he told me when viewing a painting by Rembrandt. Their creative spirits overcame physical frailties so these irrepressibly productive periods not only became dramatic exclamation points in their oeuvre but the pinnacle of their careers as well.

  An anecdote he repeated more than once was about one of his favorite artists, John Singer Sargent. In the late nineteenth century, John D. Rockefeller was reputed to be the richest man in the United States. He commissioned the great painter to do his portrait. With considerable verve and speed, Sargent completed the work in one sitting, taking perhaps an hour, according to Elmyr. Upon completion, Rockefeller was amazed that he had done it so quickly and asked his portraitist how much the picture was going to cost. When Sargent replied with something like $40,000, which at the time was a king’s ransom, his sitter was shocked. Only one thing exceeded the industrialist’s reputation for wealth: his stinginess. “Forty thousand dollars for one hour’s work?” the old man asked. Sargent unflinchingly responded, “Yes, but it took forty years to learn how to do it in an hour!” This story illustrated Elmyr’s point about heightened ability that comes with age.

  Elmyr would be the first to admit that not everything he did was perfect. Even extraordinary people have moments of normalcy or something a tad below that water line. Any professional athlete, for example, knows when one is not “in the zone” or not performing at the top of one’s game. With more than a tincture of irony, Elmyr liked to quote the German painter Max Liebermann, who thought the only reason to justify the existence of art experts was that “after an artist’s death they could declare his bad work forgeries.” He commonly vacillated in his blanket condemnation of those who might wear the title “expert.” He readily acknowledged there were genuine scholars out there whom he respected, but through experience and a rare grip of reality recognized the imperfect nature of people and their propensity to make mistakes. While he was no stranger to ego, he could not abide the power, pretense, and self-importance of those whose depth of understanding and expertise was shallow.

  One important factor that contributed to his displeasure when talking about those paladins of the art establishment was the lack of success he’d encountered when trying to sell art in no one’s style other than his own. Those barren efforts weren’t due to an absence of talent, obviously. Nor was there great stylistic difference between his work and those works of artists who enjoyed a commercial success. It left him upset, although he recognized various reasons for his continued frustrations. He and his art were products of “The School of Paris,” an appellation of broad scope encompassing a variety of art movements that were largely centered in the French capital in the first half of the twentieth century. By mid century, tastes in art had changed with the advent of abstract art or abstract expressionism. Dealers championed the exponents of these styles. They were viewed as exciting, new, and fertile ground for greater commercial exploitation and profit margins. Elmyr quietly slipped through the cracks of fad and fashion.

  The shadow of an object near a light source appears larger than the object. Such was the aura of irony surrounding Elmyr, forever larger than him. When he was finally able to bask in the public attention and recognition he always hoped for, it came with a price. As someone expressed, “Expectations are premeditated resentments.” With his fame he ex
pected acceptance of his worth as an artist. With recognition of his talent, he would at last fulfill the awaited requests for his artwork—in his own style. Sadly, these requests were infrequent, almost negligible. I witnessed the crush of interest in his creations—in the manner of others, those works that originally brought him his notoriety. He realized it was what people wanted most, and it was a bitter pill to swallow. His celebrity, like his art, may have appeared authentic to the world, but to Elmyr, it fell short of the vindication he sought and thought he deserved.

  This outward image viewed by others became an impressionist work of its own. A loose association of media hype, shreds of reality, and colorful story allowed one to paint a picture portraying a tale of success. It was not only a skewed perception, but beneath the surface was a disturbing truth. Like a Shakespearian tragedy, his life’s tribulations would ultimately demonstrate that fame and fortune counted for naught. The trajectory of events that affected his life for the better also put him directly in harm’s way.

  From Elmyr’s perspective, things improved appreciably from the financially uncertain existence he had known most of his adult life. While a sense of self-worth may be inseparable from self-sufficiency and a universal impulse rooted in human nature, its construct may be fragile as well. The impact of job loss, for example, can be psychologically devastating. Knowing the frustrations he endured trying to establish himself professionally and having to resort to fakery that demanded the same high level of skill he brought to his own work, simply to make a living, was psychically corrosive. At one point in his life, he probably became clinically depressed. When living in Washington DC he attempted suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills and was rescued before it was too late. It was the ultimate act of desperation but not his last.

  After the publication of his story, his public profile rose along with his bank account. Both these recent phenomena cheered him up considerably. With this newfound stability, he was able to create his art with a freedom he hadn’t enjoyed since living under that umbrella of parental protection and bourgeois comfort of his youth. One truth that slowly manifested itself during those years in his company was an observation I had not suspected or had any reason to deduce. His life seemed to have no rapport with that assumed inner voice and spark that are not only supposed to be inherent, but also the spiritual engine that propels one to create something—anything. Instead, I noticed that these moments of artistic impulse in Elmyr sprang from an almost working-class, lunchbox ethic that had nothing to do with his rose-smelling, satin-covered sensibilities. The impetus that prodded him into his studio was far earthier than attaining any apotheosis of art for art’s sake. The ego polish the sale of his work produced was about—money. It became his yardstick for success and motivation.

  When this revelation occurred to me I realized two things; one, he may have felt passionately about art but it was not his passion, and two, it had nothing to do with his talent. His skill was beyond reproach, but I could now see more accurately that art was his craft. While I was disappointed to learn that art was not his raison d’etre, I was even more encouraged to realize that what truly fueled and animated his life was not academic at all but was real-life relationships. That’s where his heart was. Never completely comfortable with solitude, it was the love and acceptance of others that he valued most. Friendship was his life’s blood, and his need for the companionship of others was what brought me into his life and world. For those whose lives he touched, his most lasting legacy may not be his art at all, but the cherished memories of the man who touched the lives of those around him.

  It is important to remind one that his love of others was not dressed in any Benedictine mantle of universal love and forgiveness. It was more normal, more selective. Elmyr was utterly childlike in his inability to mask his emotions. He was effusive and demonstrably affectionate with those he liked, and his uninhibited generosity and charm rarely failed to earn him friends. Even his critics, outraged over his perceived acts of sabotage against the art establishment, mellowed greatly after meeting him. I witnessed an exchange between Elmyr and a particularly acerbic British interviewer, Ludovic Kennedy. His opening question was, “Mr. de Hory, how does it feel to be a second-rate artist?” Elmyr calmly responded, “Well, Mr. Kennedy, it depends on what you call second-rate. If you talk about artists like Leonardo, Rafael, or Michelangelo, then artists like Picasso, Matisse, or Modigliani can only be considered second-rate…in which case I’m happy to be in their company.” The tone of questioning softened considerably afterward. For many others, Elmyr’s story assumed a kind of David versus Goliath folk hero status. In fact, the public spotlight shining on him at first caused considerable discomfort until the attendant notoriety translated into a demand for his artwork.

  No one knows how many of Elmyr’s fakes are in permanent collections around the world and may forever be deemed authentic. Estimates range from the hundreds to the thousands. It’s impossible to tell. One thing is certain, as Elmyr always insisted: “If it hangs in a collection long enough, it becomes real!” However, even he was fully aware of the “greed factor” that played a role in his success. Long after his “outing” as the author of so many of these spurious masterpieces, people still flocked to his doorstep to buy his creations and still tried to pawn them off as originals. I saw this occur, and he knew it was happening. He also knew it was impossible to interdict them or always forecast their intentions. At the same time the lure of cash often stifled his curiosity, as it had done so often in the past with Legros. While art forgery is an ancient profession, human disposition toward larceny may be an inherent trait since walking upright.

  Elmyr made a living from a body of work that bares the names of other artists. Now he is the model for countless forgeries that bear his name, but are not by him. He didn’t experience this one irony during his life. In fact, the subject of fake Elmyrs was brought up only once in passing, as I recall, and the prospect seemed so far-fetched that he dismissed it immediately. Since his death, I have the distinct impression that works purportedly by Elmyr have proliferated at a rate that exceeds sexually transmitted diseases. The value of these works, as in authentic artwork by Elmyr, should be based uniquely on the pleasure they give to their owners. However, in most cases the artistic merit of many of the alleged “Elmyr” paintings makes refrigerator art look good. My, how incestuous this world of forgery seems to be.

  While on the subject of forgery, there was a book published, astonishingly enough, but appropriately entitled Enigma. It purports to add a little something to Elmyr’s story as it was “retold to Ken Talbot.” All I can say about this is that Elmyr had been quietly minding his own business for about seventeen years in his casket when, for no reason I can discern, he elected to recount his life’s story from the grave to the author. While as startling an event as this might be, I could not bring myself to order the book, as it could not be corroborated by any credible supermarket tabloid at the time. Nor were any two-way communication devices placed in his coffin. Talbot also alleged to be in possession of Elmyr’s personal diaries. I can’t wait for their publication! Some publishers are evidently as tolerant as the paper upon which anything can be written. I saw some photos of paintings supposedly by Elmyr reproduced in Talbot’s book. The chances of them being by Elmyr are, in my opinion, neutrino slim. Talbot (who resembled Michael Cane), however, knew Elmyr and even bought some of his artwork. I was present when they first met. At the time, anyone who Elmyr thought might be a possible buyer earned an invitation at his dinner table. Ken came to buy.

  He had retired from a successful career as a bookmaker in London, and then, comfortably set from a life in gambling, decided to take on the challenges of a new life in Ibiza. His most attractive physical feature was his Caribbean blue eyes, although I thought they more closely resembled giant olives in the bottom of a martini glass, only slightly better lubricated. The olives, however, had a better chance of moving in concentric orbits. He also had a sloshy affability buttressed by an
unrestrained love of gin and tonics. I also had the impression that he thought he and Elmyr were kindred spirits of sorts, each just on the wrong side of social acceptability due to a phony moral priggishness. Nothing could be more inaccurate. Elmyr was, by nature and inclination, a snob, and recognized Ken for what he was, a nouveau riche bit of rough trade from London’s East End. He would not be unique in having made a cottage industry from his acquaintance with Elmyr; others have done it with much less of a connection to him.

  Elmyr knew the inherent risk of others’ using the formula learned from his saga to replicate similar schemes for easy money and that he was powerless to do anything about it. In my view, it became a kind of pop-up how-to book for others wishing to test their skill at larceny. The number of fake Elmyrs floating around like visual flotsam attests to this, and the upshot here is yet another irony. What many of these would-be imitators undoubtedly count on is the assumption that phony fakes don’t register at all on the sin list—hence, considering it, I imagine, a rather innocuous pursuit. Like Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Conversely, any bad art remains bad art, under any name. However, I will concede this: if it comes down to eating or not eating, then more power to them. After all, not everyone has a critical eye to tell the difference between what’s good and what’s bad. Some experts have been fooled, too.

  Elmyr’s frame of reference in judging art was representational or figurative art. For non-representational art, conceptual, or abstract art, he was not dismissive of it entirely. It was outside his comfort zone, but he attempted to understand it. He respected artists like Lichtenstein or Oldenburg, whose works he found clever. I remember accompanying him to an exhibition of contemporary art at the Royal Academy in London. Judging by the scowl on his face, he was at a loss to fathom how it came to be enshrined within the walls of that institution. Indeed much of it appeared to be assemblages from garage sales or constructions from the contents of one’s kitchen junk drawer, all without the wit of Rube Goldberg. He opined that it was “some sort of bad joke or a kind of ode to anarchy.”