2. Elmyr de Hory
Portrait of a Woman in the style of Modigliani
Immortalized in the book Fake! by Clifford Irving and the movie F for Fake by Orson Welles, Elmyr de Hory claimed to have sold over 1,000 paintings to reputable galleries and dealers worldwide, faking works by masters such as Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and Renoir. He began his descent into forgery when his friends mistook his copies of famous painters’ works for originals, creating original works in the style of famous masters rather than copying existing images.
De Hory
Every so often he would try to sell his own paintings, but he never found a market for them and would return to the lucrative business of copying. De Hory was constantly short-changed and cheated by his business partners – at least one of whom may have signed the works with the names of the aped artist, as de Hory always denied doing this, maintaining that this made him innocent of criminal charges. Following his death by suicide, his paintings soared in value, such that de Horys have since themselves been forged.
