The story of Elmyr de Hory (Budapest, 1906-Ibiza, 1976), the greatest forger of works of art in history (or so the legend claims or magnifies) is the never-ending story. A few days before the end of the exhibition at the Far de ses Coves Blanques with works attributed to this artist that form part of the collection of the businessman Pepe Roselló, Mark Forgy, who was De Hory’s secretary and known as the heir to his estate, claims that the paintings hanging there are not by the forger, but that they are fakes of the forger’s forgeries. The metaforgery. The forger faked. A tangle within a muddle within another monumental mess.
In a letter sent to one of this newspaper’s partners, Forgy explains that he saw Roselló’s collection in the Ibizan’s house “in 2014”. It is made up, he says, “of works, oil paintings made ‘in the manner of’ or direct copies of existing paintings signed with the names of Modigliani, Matisse, [… and] with the signature Elmyr on the back of the canvas”. But he warns that the fact that they bear his signature (in this case twice, that of the forged artist and that of the forger, one on the front, the other on the back) does not mean that they are his: “Elmyr,” warns Forgy “never created a painting with a double signature like those attributed to him in this current exhibition of the Roselló collection. Works such as these that are supposedly the products of Elmyr are certainly not. They are Elmyr fakes, not Elmyr forgeries “. It’s “ironic,” Forgy acknowledges. A joke within a joke within a gigantic joke.
In his opinion, “most of these Elmyr fakes come from a Briton, Ken Talbot“, who, as he recalls, “only bought a few or Elmyr’s works” when he was at La Falaise, the villa where the Austro-Hungarian painter lived in Vila. “None of them” he insists “had a double signature”.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.