Real Fakes, Fake Fakes, and the Estate of Elmyr de Hory

The management of artists’ estates can be both complicated and fascinating, as seen in such recent studies as Nancy J. Troy’s The Afterlife of Piet Mondrian (2014). But what about the case of a famous forger? Why would the estate of a criminal art "copyist" need “management”? And what are the financial stakes in such “fake” art? My paper will focus on Elmyr de Hory, the notorious forger of European modernists working between the 1940s and 1970s. My interest in de Hory began when I discovered a cache of his pieces in Middle American private collections last year, and, desiring to publish an article about them, began making contacts for copyright permissions. From there, I fell into a plethora of issues, including the need to discern between “real fakes” and “fake fakes”—the former produced by de Hory and signed with the forged signatures of Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani and others, and the latter that emerged on the market since de Hory’s death. Featured in several biographies since 1965, as well as articles in Life and Look, and two documentary films with one by the renowned Orson Wells, de Hory’s story has become publicly famous. And where there is fame, there is a market; and where there is a market, there are fakes. This paper explores how the profound desire for “the real” and "the original" in art history continues to create rich spaces for “the fake.”