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

by Mark Forgy

  To my amazement, two Japanese students inhabited the room next to mine. They were there to learn Spanish cooking, a novel idea, I thought. In the thirty-plus years since I lived there, Spanish cuisine has sprinted past its former unremarkable simplicity, I understand. During my time there, international gourmets were not tripping over one another queuing up “to do Spanish.” No one confused it with French cuisine. It all seemed rather modest fare, with much generously fried in olive oil and garlic. It therefore appeared both bold and mystifying that the two Japanese fellows were keen to proselytize it back in their homeland.

  The person who recommended the pension also resided there. He was Moroccan and unusually tall, about six feet four inches. Being over six feet myself, I wasn’t used to feeling short around anyone, especially since I could easily survey the tops of heads during my subway rides each day to and from the agency. The press agency was not what I expected, not at all. It was actually a small house in a residential area. It possessed no furniture other than a couple of folding tables and chairs and a dark room for developing film. It looked more conducive to conducting clandestine interrogations. Juana treated it as the War Room. What also eluded me prior to my arrival was the exact nature of what they expected me to do. Their principal customers were Spanish illustrated weeklies and daily newspapers. They bought their photos and articles, and this was my baptism in photojournalism. The impression from my first day on the job is indelible.

  About eight a.m., the phone rang. Juana listened like a squadron commander awaiting details of the day’s target. She hung up and pointed at me, entrusting me to accompany Carlos, a veteran staffer, to a location outside Madrid. The hot tip led us to monastery in the mountains. Juana told us film director Louis Buñuel was there. Our mission was clear: get photos and an interview with the elusive recluse. For years, his anti-Franco sentiments earned him non grata status, forcing him to live in France, a country proud of its robust leftist sympathies. His surreal film classic, Un Chien Andalou (Andulusian Dog) and association with Salvador Dali made him a living icon in Spain. More importantly, perhaps, the embers of rebellion cooled sufficiently to let him back into the country.

  The monastery was now a hotel, although no less austere in appearance for its secular conversion. The chill at that altitude made our necks recoil into our shoulders. The scarcity of cars suggested there were few guests this time of the year. Three-meter-high wooden doors with steel hinges resembling crusader’s swords opened easily in the rounded arch. They separated in the middle, allowing us into a stone-floored foyer. We approached the reception desk and asked the concierge if Señor Buñuel was staying there. He said he was. Was there any chance we could call his room? Carlos asked. “No,” he said, shaking his head in a way that allowed no appeal. Then, with the anticipatory look of someone expecting a reward, he added, “He does go out for his daily constitutional between three and four…” My companion’s face remained inert, impenetrable to the custom of tipping for the information just given us. I soon found out why.

  Like a bored housecat patiently waiting for a mouse to emerge from under the refrigerator, we sat in our car for more than two hours watching the hotel entrance. Buñuel finally came out alone for his walk. Carlos said, “Now”—as though his prey were at last in the cross-hairs of his scope—“grab your camera.” I followed Carlos, who took off as though we were chasing a departing bus. Buñuel cast a casual glance over his left shoulder when he heard our gallop over the gravel path. Carlos stepped in front of a small man wearing a black leather jacket, stopping his advance. He looked annoyed. Apologetically introducing himself, he begged the director for a moment of his time. We simply hoped to get a few photos and ask him some questions about his current film project. I stood back, quietly snapping a few headshots. Buñuel folded his arms across his chest; his jaw muscles rippled. Extending his right arm within inches of Carlos’s face, he raised his index finger from a closed fist. “You can take one photo, no interview.” Carlos raised his camera to frame his subject in its viewfinder for a full-face portrait of the interdicted filmmaker. He then depressed the button, sending its motorized body into a serenade of incessant clicking while moving in a close circle around his stationary subject. I continued photographing the now lemon-faced Spaniard. The director-turned-action hero then leaped like a pissed panther at Carlos, short arms rigid reaching up to snatch away his camera. Wow, their struggle was straight out of the movies. My shock was complete but superseded by my companion’s excitement. “Did you get it?” His eyes were a prospector’s twenty-four-carat gleam. “Did you get it?” he asked again. “I’m not sure,” I uttered in a somnambulant daze. “It happened so fast,” I added. Buñuel threw out some Spanish invectives demonstrating the language’s richness. We went on our way, he on his. When we reached the car he explained how a photo of their little dustup was worth more than any stupid interview.

  I better understood why celebrities struggle to recapture the tranquility anonymity gives the rest of us unknowns and how precious that imperturbable peace is. Juana’s expectations were also clear. She was grooming me to be a paparazzo. During our ride back to Madrid, I contemplated the contempt for this profession. People viewed sexually transmitted diseases with less scorn. They, at least, were curable. It was also an upside-down world from what I was learning from Elmyr, the gentility of social decorum and good manners. The notion of purposefully making myself a hateful outcast ran contrary to my values and natural desire to be liked and accepted.

  When we returned to the barren agency, Carlos took our cameras into the darkroom to develop the glossy strands of 35-millimeter film. When he came out, his face wore the disappointment of failure. Neither of us had proof of the scuffle, no fabric on which to embroider fantasy around fact as on a medieval tapestry. Afterward, I confided to Juana that I could not bring myself to the level of social detachment needed to succeed in this business. I waved a conciliatory flag, assuring her I would be happy to send her photos of noteworthy people and stories as opportunities occurred in Ibiza, contingent on their consent and cooperation, of course. For the rest of my time there I covered local events, conferences, beauty contests, and offended no one. Juana taught me how to use a darkroom, and it ended up a worthwhile experience

  My photography lessons however, enabled me to learn more about a visual medium I respect for its ability to capture truth and transform a craft into an art form. Later that summer I put some of my newly acquired skill to work. I met Georgianna Russell. She, like so many others, arrived one day at La Falaise unannounced. She was attractive, vibrant, with a lively mind, and Elmyr loved her pedigree. She was a great-niece of Bertrand Russell, the English writer, philosopher, and pacifist. Her father Sir John Russell was then British ambassador to Spain. Once, while visiting her at their residence in Madrid, I met her mother, who was Greek, a renowned beauty. Naturally, Georgianna spoke Greek and several other languages. On top of the grand piano in the living room were various photos of Sir John with Churchill, Stalin, and others. Georgianna worked as a contributing editor for British Vogue magazine. She told me about an article she had just written about Salvador Dali. She interviewed him by phone, asking him, I remember, to concoct some summer drink. The ingredients he offered better demonstrated the elasticity of Dali’s imagination than remotely resembling anything one would dare consume. According to her account, he first suggested using water from the Guadalquivir River in southern Spain, then some extinct bird guano, and then the recipe became strange. Anyway, it was a Daliesque flight of fancy. The bird poop was unsurprising, as it reminded me of an anecdote Elmyr shared with me. Apparently, when Dali was trying to lure away Gala, his future wife, from her then lover, French writer/poet Paul Eluard, he smeared his naked body with shit. He went to Gala and loudly proclaimed, “Je pue d’amour pour vous!” (I stink of love for you!) Now, with sincerity like that, what mother wouldn’t let her daughter go to the prom with a person like him?

  Georgianna was heading to Mallorca after her stopover in
Ibiza. She had another assignment there, to interview British writer and poet Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius, among numerous other books. Graves had lived for decades in Deya since before the Spanish Civil War. The village rests in the island’s coastal hillside, and is an artist’s enclave, probably in no small part due to Graves. I told Georgianna of my photojournalist stint in Madrid, so she asked if I wanted to accompany her to do the photos. “Vogue,” she assured me, “would pay for the pictures.” Elmyr gave his benediction and we left two days later.

  In Palma, we rented a car and followed the two-lane roads ascending into the mountains. It was the 24th of July 1973, a special day, Graves’s 78th birthday, and we were about to attend the celebration. His house was a typical Mediterranean farmhouse of mortared stone. His wife greeted us when we arrived. Although Georgianna had not yet met Graves, her family name assured us a warm reception. A short distance from the house, the author sat in a rattan chair under a carob tree. Rays of sunlight hit his back through its branches. Others scurried around the patio preparing a long table and smaller ones for the party later that afternoon. He didn’t stand when we approached, a formality dismissed some time ago due to age, I imagine. Spain may have been his retreat for health reasons, too. During the First World War, he suffered the effects of “shell shock” or post traumatic stress disorder. In any case, it assured his discharge from military service.

  Georgianna introduced herself and me. She sparked his interest. They talked about her “Uncle Bertie” and her father. Then, she explained my weak reason to live, my connection to Elmyr. Well, it sounded like that, sort of. He turned to me and asked, apropos of nothing else, “Were you in the hussars?” I understood the question, but briefly taken aback, responded, “I beg your pardon.” “Did you serve in the cavalry?” All I could think of was Custer at the Little Bighorn. “No…no, I didn’t.” Nor did offering that I rode a pony in a circle when I was five reach the threshold of noteworthiness to continue in this equine vein. It was still morning. Afternoon looked far off. Sensing, I think, that this topic looked fruitless, he vaulted into another realm. “I’ve been dreaming a lot lately,” he said, “but it has nothing to do with sex.” This declaration was bewildering, but at least promising. It was at once strange for this man with thinning white hair scattered by wind, flesh cascading in neat crescents around his elbows and knees, to still have libidinous thoughts. Great expectations suddenly buoyed my future old age. Before that moment I did not think at all about whether or not I would be doing it at that advanced stage. Today, I have a favorite photo I took of Graves that day. The sage is backlit with those shafts of light. He appears lost in thought—or thoroughly bored by my company. No matter.

  On the hillside below where we sat, he built in the land’s contour a semi-circular amphitheater. There, that afternoon, he recited poetry he recently wrote in Latin and Greek. I took photos while he spoke. I understood none of it, but remained quiet and polite as I learned in my youth, especially in moments of cluelessness.

  Palacio Liria

  In the center of Madrid lies a treasure chest disguised as a private home called Palacio Liria. It boasts a Baroque-style facade and stone columns within a walled, parklike setting. Considering the home burned to the ground during the Spanish Civil War, it is a remarkable reconstruction, attentive in every way to period detail, a paean to its owners’ wealth, status, and sense of their own historical prominence dating back to the Middle Ages. It belongs to the Alba family, Grandees of Spain for centuries—and through aristocratic marriages they are even on the short list as successors to the British throne, as their family name happens to be Fitz-James Stewart. Did I mention they were rich in an incalculable way? Really. They possess vast property holdings throughout the country and one of the most important art collections in the world, including hundreds of works by the great Spanish masters Velásquez, Goya, El Greco, Zubarán, Murrillo et al.

  A friend in Madrid introduced us to the son of the Duchess of Alba. He then offered Elmyr and me a private tour of the family villa. He explained how Italian and Spanish artisans painstakingly replicated every original element of the palace. Its rectangular floor plan echoed many of the great country houses of European nobility of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Inlaid marble floors displayed intricate multicolored designs like those reserved for the tops of tables or finest cabinetry. Far exceeding its value was the extensive art collection that mercifully moved to the vaults of the Banco de España during the three years the country devolved in its internecine civil war.

  Life-size Greek statues flanked the wide marble stairwell to the second-floor salons, past the spacious family chapel with its gold leaf religiosity. Besides the paintings in their ornate gilded frames in an endless procession of rooms, Goblain tapestries and museum-quality marquetry furniture added to their pomp. Our stamina withered under the visual onslaught. We returned to the ground floor to their library. It was a large room. I remember its ceiling perhaps six or seven meters high, fifteen meters wide, and about thirty meters long. Spaced evenly around the perimeter of the library, near its ceiling, were brightly painted escutcheons, each signifying one of their duchies. I imagine the hypoxic condition afflicting the winded major domo having to recite all their titles. It was difficult envisioning the surprises contained within this library. Waist-high glass cases contained beyond-rare documents. Among them were letters from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the marriage certificate of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, their last will and testament, the Alba Bible, an early fifteenth-century illuminated translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Spanish, and, stunningly, letters from Christopher Columbus, including the first map of the New World drawn in Columbus’s own hand. (Now this is the best part.) We staggered forward zombie-legged. The Duchess’s son threw an over-the-shoulder caveat. “Of course, we keep the valuable things in the safe.” I added, “Do you have one of Moses’s tablets in there?” He laughed, but didn’t specify what those treasures were.

  The Grand Tour

  Visitors to La Falaise often seemed like a trail of ants winding their way to a mound. With each new set of claps from the black iron doorknocker, I would scurry to see who arrived to see Elmyr. One of my appointed tasks was resident major domo, greeting, admitting, and announcing those wanting to meet Ibiza’s celebrated artist. Elmyr relaxed his observance of social protocol for these unexpected callers. Not everyone had a phone, so it was often easier to make a personal visit, an informality we all accepted.

  At that time, the island’s telephone system was a bit more effective than using an empty can at each end of a taut string, but only slightly. When attempting a call to his friend Sandy in Santa Eulalia, a village about eighteen kilometers away, he had to go through a local operator. Often he sat on the edge of his bed; his face went crimson when communicating with her, shouting as though he were trying to raise the dead through a mostly deaf spiritualist. These blood-pressure-raising events were somewhat successful as he made himself audible a good part of the way in an imperfect Esperanto that Elmyr mistook for the Spanish equivalent of the Queen’s English. The odd thing is that his linguistic gumbo stew became perfectly understandable to anyone spending much time with him. After learning French, I studied Spanish and only then realized his notion of Castilian Spanish was his own hybrid of Latin, Italian, Portuguese, and smattering of the native language thrown in to be polite.

  On a sunny morning, responding to the familiar sound at the front door, I opened it to find a middle-aged British couple eager to see Elmyr. Informing them that he was in his studio working, and by custom, did not wish to be disturbed, I welcomed them to wait upstairs. They had come from San Antonio, the more modern resort and hotel area on the other side of the island that catered to the ever-growing influx of tourists.

  Before long, Elmyr emerged from his bedroom suite, where he had transformed its sitting room into his atelier. Speckles and streaks of oil paints of various colors on his hands and fingers suggested a less fastidio
us relation with his brushes than with his table flatware. He wore a gray-blue smock to absorb the splatter from his palette, and it was always a roadmap of his creative journey. He possessed scores of brushes, consisting of every conceivable thickness and width, all of the finest quality from his favorite supplier, Windsor and Newton. They were expensive, highly prized, and cared for with motherly attention. In his left hand was a clutch of freshly used brushes. Washing them carefully was a never-ignored routine afterward.

  Hearing strange voices emanating from the second-floor living room, he asked, before coming into view, “Who’s here?” I replied, “You have two visitors who’ve shown great perseverance in tracking you down.” I introduced Ian Major and his wife, Cynthia. His hands still bearing the traces of his morning’s work, he cordially greeted them, but excused himself to wash up and clean his brushes. Returning within minutes, he then warmly engaged his guests. Ian, a tall, stout, jovial man comfortably bore a retirement-age weight gain stretched over a once-athletic frame. He also displayed that self-assured ease that wealth breeds, a look I became familiar with in Elmyr’s world. His wife, Cynthia, imparted the class of those whose speech was associated with the landed gentry. She was warm and gracious. Her past was anything but a life of uninterrupted privilege, as her accent intoned. On the contrary, her history was marked with the hardship of a generation emotionally and physically scared by war. Her personal story was as unique as it was unexpectedly harsh. She was previously married to Hoar-Belisha, a member of Churchill’s cabinet, his war minister and a Jew. Hugely unlucky, Cynthia was in Germany at that unpropitious moment when England declared war with Nazi Germany. The Gestapo gave her accommodations in Auschwitz as personal guest of the Führer. When she shared this background with Elmyr, visibly overcome by grief, he broke down and cried, unable to hide his upset and sorrow. He told me his father, a Hungarian diplomat, died at Auschwitz, one of the most horrific sites of mass exterminations.