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

by Mark Forgy

  In all fairness, I cannot characterize the wholesale sentiments of an entire class and say with any certainty that the antipathy felt by many toward Elmyr was universal. At this time the wounds were still fresh and largely unhealed. By the mid 1970s, I think everyone seemed to move on. Sales of Elmyr’s work à la his repertoire of impressionist and postimpressionist artists cropped up at auctions of Sotheby’s and Christie’s. As might be expected, fake “Elmyrs” began to surface and have abounded ever since. A friend of Elmyr’s, Anthony Hugo, knew him before I appeared on the scene and witnessed much of the turmoil that involved Legros and their circus-like relationship, but without the joy. Tony has a wonderful collection of work by Elmyr, and London’s auction houses often seek his opinion when it comes to authenticating Elmyr’s work. My point, however, is that he no longer is viewed as a outcast the establishment shuns, but with a little distance and forgiveness they are as happy to make a 15 percent sales commission off his work as indiscriminately as anyone else. They have also voiced their respect for his talent as an artist, and while this posthumous acceptance comes too late for Elmyr to enjoy, the afterglow may be more enduring.

  Thankfully for Elmyr, his fame lasted longer than the fifteen minutes allotted to everyone by Andy Warhol. At the same time, hidden from view, his newly conferred celebrity metastasized into something increasingly malignant. No sooner had Fake entered the ranks of America’s most popular books when Fernand Legros, whose ego, like the universe, was ever-expanding, initiated a lawsuit against the book’s publisher, McGraw-Hill, author Cliff Irving, and, of course, Elmyr. Legros claimed defamation of character and sought damages in the millions, something surpassing the GDP of Guatemala. While the popular book reached a paperback printing, the lawsuit essentially brought a second edition in hardcover to a sinkhole. Predictably, Fernand and his battery of attorneys put everything in a legal headlock. This siege tactic is ancient. Everyone hunkers down for a long war of attrition that assures the litigants of paying the college educations of their attorneys’ children and grandchildren. If you have a first-rate lawyer and have deep pockets, the strategy works. O. J. Simpson’s case illustrated this point. Also, never mind that the bedrock of the story was factual, according to Elmyr, and that Irving may actually have sanitized or omitted some of the more bizarre and convoluted elements of this saga. Nevertheless, Legros had everyone by the short and curly hairs.

  Elmyr, for his part, hired an attorney well known for his list of show business clients, L. Arnold Weissberger, recommended by Howard Sackler. Only because he cut a wide swath in his milieu and was a distinguished man, he warrants mentioning here. Arnold had silver-white hair with an RAF mustache and old-school ethics. He and his partner Milton Goldman were part of New York’s Upper East Side elite. In their comfortable and fashionable apartment, quality artwork covered the walls. Both were as charming and personable as could be. Arnold appropriately wore a pinky ring with his initials, L. A. W. Like a great white hunter, he led Elmyr through the legal thickets for the duration of this suit, which dragged out for years. Not surprisingly, it cost him thousands of dollars to defend himself in this case, when he had not made one cent, that I saw, from sales of the book. Such was the price of fame.

  If money alone had mitigated his troubles, he would have thrown the coins on the scale with a sense of relief. When they say the wheels of justice move slowly, they often neglect to observe those unfortunates lashed to their spokes. Elmyr paid a high price psychologically as well for his involvement in the book’s lawsuit. Legros was in a cross-eyed snit that Elmyr had become a kind of folk hero while he bore the disgrace of a villain. Therefore, with the unhinged obsession of a stalker, Legros made it his raison d’etre to destroy him—however he could. Using the legal system proved to be an extremely effective instrument of torture and, as single-mindedly driven as he was, with money to boot, it became his preferred tool to use against Elmyr. Like the personal hell of the mythological Sisyphus, Legros represented Elmyr’s unrelenting burden that he could never quite overcome.

  It would be foolish and misleading to portray Elmyr as an unwitting victim of those who were simply crazy, greedy, or both. At some point he passed the baton of merchant to Fernand Legros, preferring to remain in Ibiza and create his dubious masterpieces in quietude and anonymity. However, he worried that Fernand’s dizzying flair for a Marx Brothers’ variety of the absurd and slapstick theatrics perpetually threatened the peace of his island sanctuary. Since their hands were simultaneously in each other’s pockets, Elmyr’s protestations of Legros totally hoodwinking him is in all probability only partially true. Elmyr had a way of looking at you with his soft brown eyes and possessing an inherent gullibility that, when he proclaimed his innocence, you at once wanted to believe him as a parent is inclined to do with a child. There was, however, a disquieting trail of crumbs that led straight from the empty cookie jar to him.

  Legros had become used to his Hungarian goose pumping out those golden eggs on demand, and their business arrangement was mutually beneficial. One term Elmyr often used to describe Legros was “diabolically clever.” This may have been true, but any shill running a three-shell game on a street corner would have immediately recognized Elmyr’s aura of an easy mark. In a way, Legros did no more to Elmyr than does any businessperson who knows how to keep an employee productive and motivated, which was to pay Elmyr a “minimum wage.” That assured him of a steady commodity that he could broker, assume the attendant risks, and keep the lion’s share of the profits for himself. Because Elmyr was incurably naive, easily manipulated, and removed from the street-level haggling of the marketplace, he may well have believed Legros’s understated success at selling his work. Another behind-the-scenes factor was at play here. Elmyr’s natural comfort zone was at a societal level where people were titled, wealthy, and privileged. That is where he felt he belonged, and actually having to “work” for a living was an unfortunate fact of life for others, not for him. Even the bourgeois merchant class was a rung farther down the ladder than where he wanted to be. Consequently, it worked out conveniently that he could have the means to be a gentleman artist without the drudgery of being a “commoner.” He had already done that, selling his pink poodle paintings door-to-door in Los Angeles, and really didn’t much care for it.

  The one symbol of his success that he felt was well earned was his villa, La Falaise. Here again, Fernand beguiled him out of the last remnant of common sense when Elmyr elected to put the home in Legros’s name. So, offstage the legal tug-of-war over ownership of the house began to rage around the same time Elmyr’s star was ascending. The lawsuit over Fake was further adding furrows to his brow. It really seemed that for every positive step forward he was taking, there was this wretched riptide pulling him back into a morass of distress that he thought was finally behind him. These disturbing undercurrents, however, were not apparent to anyone outside his intimate circle. As time went on, the tension between the tectonic plates of good versus evil that he appeared to straddle became increasingly sinister and destabilizing.

  Elmyr’s Madrid Exhibition

  An urban crop of trees resembling giant stalks of broccoli sprouted from sidewalks at neat ten-meter intervals. These Gauguin trees with their spindly trunks suggested the city had not entirely divorced itself from nature, though the paltry amount of oxygen they contributed did little to offset the smothering pollution of Madrid’s air.

  On a hazy, chilled November evening, I accompanied Elmyr and Ursula to his grandest exhibition opening. We left the Hotel Ritz early. It was home when we were in Madrid. Its crystal chandeliers, thick Aubusson rugs, linen sheets, and solicitous concierge epitomized oldworld elegance and charm that I now thought was an indispensable and normal part of life. The cab driver stopped in front of a nineteenthcentury apartment building. The art gallery was the vision of an enterprising Catalan businessman, Isidro Clot. Before his newest mercantile impulse, he owned a fleet of trawlers and still knew more about wet fish than art. He was wealthy enough
to care little about what others thought, but like Elmyr, also knew the importance of appearances. While fine art had more cachet than cod or mackerel, it was simply another vehicle to make money. Deal making was what made his heart beat faster, and I am sure it thumped away merrily that autumn night.

  Emerging from our taxi, we stepped under the canopies of those stage-prop trees. A high stone Roman arch centered the building’s stucco facade. Above its keystone, an embedded square blue tile with its white numbers, 69, indicated we had found the gallery’s location. We walked through the imperial-looking archway up a few wide stone steps whose surface sagged from frequent use. A Philippine mahogany door with swirling, beveled glass opened to a foyer. Inside, a brass plaque announced the gallery: Second floor, right. “Visitation by appointment only” intoned its exclusionary snob appeal. Directly ahead was an ornate wrought-iron birdcage of an elevator small enough for four slender, well-acquainted people. To the left, two-meter wide white marble steps rose to corner landings between floors, convenient stops for sweaty movers of large Rococo armoires and tassel-fringed sofas.

  Elmyr wore a black wool Spanish cape with a generous swath of red velvet lining, suitable for parrying a lunging bull on the loose. Underneath, he donned his signature black velvet jacket, white shirt from his Saville Row tailor, black silk tie, dark trousers, and freshly polished black shoes. A thin gold chain held his monocle between his dress shirt and jacket. Around his left wrist was a postage-stamp-thin wristwatch from Boucheron with his initials, E. H., on its face. The normal glitter of jewelry was subdued on this occasion. He combed his gray hair to the side, precisely parted on the left. His suntanned face was a quick effect that oozed from a tube, although his smile was genuine.

  Our footsteps echoed off the stone steps as we ascended the stairs. I pushed the small illuminated button beside the gallery door to announce our arrival. The gleaming wooden door opened. Elmyr and Ursula entered first; I followed them in. The scent of her perfume reminded me of my mother’s yellow roses, the ones I carefully uncovered each spring after their long winter hibernation. A staccato of photographers’ strobe flashes and clicking camera shutters greeted our entrance. Ursula, still a darling of the paparazzi, assumed her red-carpet persona, radiating her movie-star smile.

  Inside the gallery, dark gray velvet drapes hung from its high ceilings to the floor and covered the walls. The space, converted from a private residence, boasted museum-sized salons, illuminated only by picture lights over golden French frames. Strategically placed Louis XVI bergère chairs and an ormolu desk or cabinet punctuated these interior spaces with studied stagecraft. Within his private office at the back of the gallery, Clot and Elmyr frequently set business aside, preferring to talk about anything else at length. As if to remind themselves how much better their lives were now than before, they exchanged war stories—Clot’s memories of deprivation during Spain’s vicious civil war and Elmyr’s survival of torture and prison camp. They shared a mutual admiration for skills the other possessed. Elmyr embodied an artistic ability that awed the calculating entrepreneur, and one could see the marvel in Elmyr’s eyes at Clot’s unerring financial sleight-of-hand. Each now exhibited the confidence that success brings. Their wealth and hard-earned social status were deserved rewards for their respective talents, tenacity, and surviving crushing hardships.

  Over the previous eight years, Elmyr transformed from an itinerant refugee into an object of public curiosity, and was now no longer viewed with disdain by the upper class for the stigma attached to his dubious past. Like the Greek immigrant painter some four hundred years earlier, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known as El Greco, Elmyr’s name now garnered a widespread respect in his adopted and adoptive country. This night’s opening lent the most powerful imprimatur of societal acceptance he could desire. It would be his most important exhibition.

  The Spanish tabloids twittered, speculating that members of the family of King Juan Carlos would attend the event. Embossed invitations went out to Madrid’s glitterati, those who incubated in the hothouse of public attention. By this, I mean all those individuals Elmyr and Clot thought sufficiently titled, wealthy, and famous showed up for an exclusive preview of Elmyr’s most recent artwork. A fashion reporter observed that elegantly dressed women represented about every major international designer of haute couture. Their low-cut gowns allowed hefty gem-laden necklaces to drip down to sensuous cleavages, so the simultaneous display of sexuality and wealth beckoned the ogling onlooker. However, prurient thoughts of Saturday night routinely received absolution on Sunday morning.

  One of the first lessons I learned at the School of Elmyr was the significance of association. For him, appearances spoke volumes, yet he knew better than most just how deceiving they are. It was, nevertheless, important that people thought well of you, and one sure way of achieving this was being in the company of the right people. That evening his exhibition became his investiture of sorts. The elite of Spanish society came to see Elmyr, and their benediction authenticated him. He now felt vindicated; his sense of self-worth bolstered, as both a person and an artist, by the collective display of adulation, he thought. This law of prestige by association proved correct once again; he radiated pride and self-satisfaction. The whole world would now see him as a person of merit. This perception and acknowledgement were what he craved most.

  Elmyr’s Madrid exhibition – 1976

  Elmyr beamed his irrepressible smile, consuming titles and names as Clot introduced the invitees. He bowed solicitously over the extended hands of the chic women and arched his eyebrows in curiosity at their moneyed spouses. Judging from the shine in his brown eyes, I guessed he was mentally placing people on that heraldic org chart like a child decorating a Christmas tree. Long-stemmed women held fluted crystal glasses of fine French champagne. Their manes of flowing hair and impeccable pedigrees suggested a paddock of bipedal thoroughbreds. There was a prerace excitement in the air. It was long apparent to me that all these people wore their wealth comfortably, as an Olympic champion would his hardearned olive wreath. However, it was difficult to imagine such people exuding a drop of perspiration for what they had. My perception was skewed, of course, because I knew many, like Clot, actually worked for a living. Their ascent up the social ladder came by virtue of talent and not simply by right of birth.

  Whatever their credentials may have been, their presence at the gallery was a paean of respect, and their homage moved him deeply. Perhaps it was the absence of acceptance and love in his childhood that made their attainment an inexorable part of his character. This drive ruled his emotional compass, but its needle often pointed in a direction that was neither true nor advisable. During a fireside chat one evening at La Falaise, when I was still getting to know him, I confused wisdom with intelligence and was too young to know anything about emotional intelligence or the role it played in his life. Now, amid the adulation of those people whose opinions and support he esteemed most, the smoke from the burning wreckage of scandal seemed a distant memory. That’s what I thought as I examined the collection of new work unveiled that chilled November night in Madrid.

  As for the outcry from museum curators, art dealers, collectors, or experts, their pique had long since subsided. In fact, those with legitimate grievances against him were perhaps the most silent. With the clarity of hindsight and reinflated egos, his critics could claim that he never fooled them. In most cases, I suspect, the invective directed his way was probably just on the wrong side of audibility, and protests that he was not as talented as his reputation suggested surfaced a safe distance away from any involvement with him.

  A sense of calm replaced the oscillating unpredictability that tethered him to an uncertain existence. His relationship with Clot made financial sense for both, and his need for security in this realm made it a no-brainer for him. It offered none of the complexities of emotionally motivated decisions. When courting Elmyr and proposing a business partnership, Clot made a point of touting his personal and professional success in
becoming Salvador Dali’s exclusive representative for his sculptures in gold and silver. Clot correctly surmised the lure of being in the company of Dali would prove as irresistible as the scent of quail to a pointer.

  Three years earlier in Madrid, Dali had what was the most visually dazzling exhibition of art I have ever seen. Each piece, conceived by his unfathomable and tirelessly fertile imagination, was a construct of precious gems and metals. The hugely successful show not only was a triumph of his unique, surrealistic visions, but also a powerful collaboration with some of Spain’s greatest and artistically inventive gold- and silversmiths and jewelers. I recalled the skill and technical virtuosity of Benvenuto Cellini’s famous saltcellar or Carl Fabergé’s Easter egg collection for Czar Nicolas II.

  I believe Clot’s being out of his depth in the world of art bothered him little. He wisely left that domain of expertise to the artists his gallery represented. His world was moneymaking, and this real-life talent enabled him to make a seamless transition from selling slippery fish to hawking artwork. Nor could one solely attribute his success to uncanny mercantile instincts. His perception and shrewd ability to read people gave him an edge in his dealings with others. His charm and indulgence toward lavishly entertaining those he wished to impress was simply a tact employed by any effective lobbyist. Elmyr’s susceptibility to these overtures was just probably easier to forecast. Their respect for each other, above all else, formed the foundation of their accord. What began ostensibly as a business relationship turned into a friendship that lasted until Elmyr’s death.

  In Elmyr’s finest moment, the presence of his great friend Ursula Andress made the occasion even more luminescent. She had genuine star power, a bona fide celebrity, but whose no-nonsense Swiss pragmatism never allowed her to lose touch with her well-grounded values. She offered him the perfect foil for the event. If anyone could look better in form-fitting clothes than Ursula, it could only be Aphrodite herself. Dressed in black with a plunging neckline, her figure and beauty gathered everyone’s attention. Clot seized the opportunity to ask her to wear some of Dali’s jewelry. He probably thought it unlikely that anyone else could model it more attractively than her.