Fabulous Forgeries : Newport Gallery Shows Works by Artist Who Faked Out Experts for Years

When a forged painting turns up in an art museum or gallery, it’s usually time to call out the bunco squad.

But there was no whistle-blowing Sunday at the opening of a new exhibit in Newport Beach, even though the show includes nine forged paintings, ostensibly done by modern artists such as Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Modigliani and Dufy.

That’s because the subject of the 2 1/2-week exhibit at Visual Environments gallery is famous fakes by Elmyr de Hory, considered one of the greatest art forgers of this century and also one of the most famous, having been the subject of the 1969 best-selling expose “Fake!” by Clifford Irving.

And although all nine De Hory fakes are labeled as forgeries and have the name “Elmyr” signed on the back, many of the dozens of people who came to the gallery initially didn’t know that they weren’t seeing the real thing.

“I wondered, ‘How can they get all these originals by famous people and not have armed guards?’ ” said Karen Dora of Dana Point. “I thought maybe they were just prints.”

‘Didn’t Know They Were Fakes’

Like the majority of those who attended Sunday’s opening, Irvine resident Janet Schwettman came to the exhibit to fill time while waiting to eat at a busy restaurant adjacent to the 3-month-old gallery. “I didn’t know they were fakes,” Schwettman said, adding with a laugh, “That’s great--they’ve got bad paintings next to the Good Earth.”

The show, assembled from the private collection of De Hory aficionado John Pyle, is coordinated by Burton Reis, an Orange County art collector.

Like countless others, Reis first learned about the Hungarian artist-turned-art forger through Irving’s book. Although it has been 18 years since De Hory was exposed for painting works in the styles of famous artists and selling them to dealers as originals, Reis said there is an increasing sense of admiration for De Hory’s peculiar talent.

“Consider the genius the man had to have,” Reis said last week, pointing to De Hory’s versions of a Modigliani oil, a Dufy watercolor and a Picasso drawing. “Not just to copy, but to be able to reproduce the style of the artist to the extent that it took years before someone began to doubt their authenticity.”

‘He’s a Real Genius’

Earl Harris, a Harrisburg, Pa., resident on vacation in Orange County, said, “He’s a real genius,” but added that he wouldn’t pay the $10,000 to $15,000 that was asked for most of De Hory’s forgeries.

Schwettman, however, said she would have nothing against owning a forgery. “I think it would be more fun than having the original,” she said.

Added Al Van Schijndel of La Mirada, “Not everyone else would know that it was a fake, so I think there certainly would be people who would want to own one.”

While many art authorities acknowledge De Hory’s abilities, some aren’t as enthusiastic as Reis about the worth of famous fakes.

“It’s not something I would buy, but there is a cache of collectors who are interested in forgeries,” said Virgilia Pancoast, director of authentication services at the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) in New York, an organization founded in 1968 specifically to recognize and track art forgeries and thefts. “I think it’s a novelty, a conversation piece,” she said.

Paul Schimmel, curator of exhibitions and collections at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, said “(De Hory’s works) are high-quality forgeries. . . . They are very beautiful paintings. But they have no intrinsic creative quality and don’t represent a breakthrough for the artist or show creative ingenuity, which is the way great artworks are judged.”

Compared to the price tags of $10,000 to $15,000 on De Hory’s fakes, originals by the artists De Hory copied might sell for anywhere from $100,000 to more than $1 million. (In November, Modigliani’s “The Dreamer” sold for a record $4.6 million.)

Own Paintings ‘Terrible’

Ironically, Reis added, “De Hory’s own paintings were judged universally to be terrible.” It was largely because De Hory was unable to make a living from his own paintings that he turned to art forgery.

From 1946 to 1967, De Hory sold an unknown number of his fakes. Although the authenticity of individual works was sometimes challenged, the extent of his scheme was not discovered until the late 1960s. In 1976, De Hory committed suicide on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, where he had lived and worked for many years.

Of the De Hory saga, Reis said, “It’s a wonderful story. Of course, I might not think so if I had paid a few hundred thousand dollars for one of his forgeries.”

Some Still Undetected

Reis also said an unknown number of De Hory forgeries are still hanging undetected in museums around the world. “Obviously,” Reis said, “museum trustees would not be happy about having their decisions exposed as unworthy.”

Because the quality of De Hory’s fakes often confounded even the experts, gallery manager Carl F. Berg said there has been some nervousness about leaving the De Hory forgeries in open view.

“We’re a little bit afraid people would look inside and think they are the real thing,” he said.

Said Newport Beach Police Lt. Jim Carson, who described himself as an art buff, “We would be interested in helping them prevent anything like a window smashing, but I don’t think we’d be particularly concerned about a crime taking place as long as the pieces are clearly labeled as copies. Anyone who is knowledgeable at all is going to know that they are not going to find a valuable Renoir hanging in a window.”

“It’s ironic,” Reis said of the exhibit. “It’s also intriguing. It’s a way of making the infamous famous. But to a lot of people, infamous is just as good as famous.”