Elmyr de Hory 1906 – 1976

On arriving in Paris de Hory attempted to make an honest living as an artist, but soon discovered that he had an uncanny ability to copy the works of noted painters. So good were his copies that many of his friends believed them to be genuine; in 1946 de Hory sold a reproduction of a Picasso to a British friend who took it for an original. He began to sell his Picasso reproductions to art galleries, claiming that they were what remained of his family's estate. Galleries took the paintings and paid de Hory the equivalent of $100 to $400 per painting. Elmyr was always unique among art forgers in that, rather than attempting to copy existing works by celebrated artists, he only painted original works in their style, which made the forgeries much harder to detect.

Occasionally, throughout his career, de Hory attempted to stop making forgeries and create original artwork, but could never find a market for his work, always returning to the lucrative clandestine activity. De Hory eventually expanded his forgeries to include works by Matisse, Modigliani and Renoir. Because some of the galleries de Hory had sold his forgeries to were becoming suspicious, he began to use pseudonyms, and to sell his work by mail order. Some of de Hory's many pseudonyms included Louis Cassou, Joseph Dory, Joseph Dory-Boutin, Elmyr Herzog, Elmyr Hoffman and E. Raynal.


During the early 1970s, de Hory again decided to try his hand at painting, hoping to exploit his new-found fame: this time, he would sell his own, original work. While he had gained some recognition in the art world he made little profit, and he soon learned that French authorities were attempting to extradite him to stand trial on fraud charges. This took quite some time, however, as Spain and France had no extradition treaty at that time.

On December 11, 1976, Elmyr de Hory's live-in bodyguard (part of Elmyr's self-created mythos was his belief that he had enemies who wished to murder him) and companion, Mark Forgy, informed him that the Spanish government had, after lengthy negotiation, agreed to turn Elmyr over to the French authorities. Shortly thereafter, Forgy found Elmyr near death in their home. He had taken an overdose of sleeping pills, and within minutes of being discovered, died in Forgy's arms. Clifford Irving has expressed doubts about Elmyr's death, claiming that he may have faked his own suicide in order to escape extradition, but Forgy has dismissed this theory.

Following his death, de Hory's paintings became valuable collectibles. In fact, his paintings had become so popular that forged de Horys began to appear on the market.