FORGING FISH

By Mark Young

Perhaps the greatest art forger of the 20th century was Hungarian-born artist Elmyr de Hory (1906-1976). After studying classical painting at institutes in Germany and France, de Hory realized That his true artistic bent resided in the ability to copy the works of other artists, which he did prolifically. Picasso. Matisse. Renoir. Modigliani. De Hory claimed to have sold more than a thousand forgeries to art galleries and wealthy individuals around the world.

Elmyr was different from most art forgers in that he didn’t copy the paintings of famous artists. Instead, he painted original works in their style, which made the forgeries even harder to detect. Part of what makes the art of forgery remarkable is the different forms that it takes in the countless areas that it pervades. Forgery is basically defined as the process of making, adapting or imitating objects, statistics or documents with the intent to deceive. If there’s money in faking it, someone is making it. And the fact that someone’s buying it often adds another layer of authenticity to the hoax. After all, what does the value of a forged item become when you tell about it?

For example, it is beyond speculation that quite a bit of what you see on display in museums is not the real

deal. Museums have been suckered by forgers to the point that known forgeries remain on display, serious efforts to examine questionable objects are rare and, according to one museum whistleblower, “the system is supported by a mafia-like code of silence within museums and academe that conceals information and impedes exposure of the underlying process of plunder, forgery and smuggling.” Add that to the wonderment of your next museum visit.

Mostly we think of forgery in terms of money and art, but it’s rife in archaeology, literature, music, documents, history, perfumes, designer clothing, stamps, relics, religion, baseball trading cards, and even wine. So should it come as a surprise that forgeries are rampant among fish? One company in Florida, aided by export- exporta - mong export ers in Asia, imported thousands of pounds of catfish into the United States labeled and sold as grouper, just to avoid paying duties that the Department of Commerce had imposed on Vietnamese catfish.

That example is just one small act on the grand stage of seafood fraud that includes a multitude of illegal activities, undertaken by countless characters in countless places along the international supply chain. The fraud typically involves mislabeling (forging) seafood through the substitution of one species of fish — usually of inferior quality — for another, mostly for economic gain. The feature story that begins on Page 30 provides an interesting look into fish fraud; it’s a disturbing and informative article.

You can imagine that Elmyr de Hory’s career makes for good reading, and indeed he is the subject of a few books. The best was written by then-respected author Clifford Irving after extensive interviews with the subject. (“Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time” was published in 1969.)

So does the name Clifford Irving ring a bell? Just two years after publishing “Fake,” Irving pulled his own

“de Hory” using forged letters that he said were from Howard Hughes, to trick McGraw-Hill into buying a fake autobiography of the reclusive billionaire. However, while the subject of his previous book worked to

make his forgeries hard to detect, Irving had the brass to perpetrate his fraud and write the autobiography

with much fanfare, and dumber yet while Hughes was still alive. Irving went to prison for the scam, as did the owner of the Florida fish company, mere footnotes to the ever-growing market in fakes and forgeries where not everything is what it appears; perhaps not even that salmon fillet on the plate before you.

Enjoy this edition of Dive Training as you dine on

— whatever that is.