Elmyr B Fuddling, the human photocopier
At risk of becoming “the fake-art blog”, Dali House would now like to pay tribute to the late, great Elmyr de Hory, who was so good at copying the masters that collectors started lining up for his own work just so they could say they owned a painting by the world’s greatest forger. And, in the greatest homage any citizen of this world could ever hope for, Hollywood made a movie about him. Actually, it was a documentary written and directed by my fellow Georgetowner Orson Welles.
Also, Clifford Irving, another venerated name in fakedom, wrote a book about Elmyr. Struggling for a title, he decided to call it “Fake!” Now Irving is getting a movie of his own, based on that little practical joke of a Howard Hughes “autobiography” for which he did 14 months in the slammer. Richard Gere is playing Irving in “The Hoax”, due out any day now.
Elmyr de Hory kept art connoisseurs and the cops guessing for three decades with his renditions of Picasso, Vlaminck, Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec, Dufy, Derain, Matisse, Degas, Bonnard, Laurencin and Modigliani. Interpol and the FBI were always looking for him. See the rest.
