Customer Reviews

Fake!

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Subtitled The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time, Fake! is the only kind of true-crime book I can get into: not the story of a murderer, but of a classy kind of con artist.

As any fan of Orson Welles's F for Fake will already know, Elmyr de Hory was responsible for a real shake-up in the art community. For decades, he sold all over the world paintings of his own as the work of old masters. But his story never reads as a mean-spirited attempt to get rich, mostly due to the approach.

Author Clifford Irving (who would, just a few years after writing this book, pull off his own fake -- with the fictional Autobiography of Howard Hughes) portrays Elmyr as a sympathetic figure. He only did it when he needed money; when he was flush, he focused on his own art career, and never painted in others' styles during those periods.

Sadly, his own career never took off, and so he was repeatedly forced to go back into his particular bag of tricks and produce works in the styles of Picasso, Modigliani, Derain, Renoir, and others until he was finally caught, though he was never convicted due to what was essentially a technicality. Elmyr always claimed to have never signed any of the paintings (although his business partners may have) which keeps the paintings from being outright forgeries.

Fake! is a terrific book. Part biography, part crime story, part world travelogue, and probably part fiction, it remains wholly engaging and eminently readable.

I am a Clifford Irving fan, and this is one of my very favorite Irving books. The story of art forger Elmyr de Hory is a fascinating one. It is obvious that Irving has a strong art background as he is able to explain in detail how de Hory succeeded in duping the art world with his "fakes". Irving met de Hory when they both lived on the island of Ibiza, and, in addition to the intriguing story of de Hory's ability to perfectly recreate well known and coveted works of art, Irving entertains with his stories of life on Ibiza. I really loved this book.

THIS BOOK HAS TAUGHT ME TO APPRECIATE MY OWN FAKES.. YOU NEVER CAN BE QUITE SURE .IF THE REAL THING IS THE REAL THING .. EVEN BY EXPERTS. ..IT TURNED THE ART WORLD UP-SIDE-DOWN. G0T THIS BOOK AT A GARAGE SALE, AND GLAD I DID.

A REVIEWER , I AM NOT. BUT I KNOW WHAT I ENJOY.

The copy of "Fake" which I received is in very good condition. I also appreciated the newspaper clippings about Elmyr de Hory which the previous owner left in the book.The previous owner was an Edith Hale, and the book was dedicated by Clifford Irving to an Edith. Could the two be the same?

"This is the astonishing and often incredible-but-true story of Elmyr de Hory---the world's greatest art forger, who painted over a thousand brilliant fake canvasses reputedly worth more than sixty million dollars in today's art market.

No twentieth-century master's technique was too difficult for Elmyr, who could turn out a Picasso or a Renoir at a moment's notice in a hotel room---not to mention Modiglianis, Matisses, Vlamincks, Derains, and Dufys that were sold to leading art galleries and museums around the world.

Author Clifford Irving brilliantly relates the exotic, flamboyant life of this Hungarian refugee, from his

EARLIEST DAYS IN PARIS AS A TALENTED PUPIL OF LEGER TO HIS FINAL ESCAPADES ON THE SPANISH ISLAND OF IBIZA....."

[from the book of the cut-off piece paper (look like front or back flap) on first title page.]