became something of a folk hero in the anti-establishment atmosphere that pervaded the late 1960s, an age of rebellion and social unrest. Secondly, his ensuing notoriety, he thought, would finally afford him the lifelong recognition he sought, to be seen as a fine artist in his own right. He was wrong. De Hory often referred to himself as "famously infamous," and he enjoyed his time in the spotlight as a bad-boy media darling, though that attention never translated into a demand for artwork in his own avant-garde style. It was a bitter irony for him for the rest of his life. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, rather than learning from the mistakes made by art dealers and collectors, de Hory's target audience, the commerce of art remains little changed from the halcyon days of his midcentury fakery. The degree of complicity de Hory enjoyed with art dealers is open to speculation, though even today art sellers face no fallout from unlawful dealings unless it can be proven that they are ‘knowingly’ complicit in fraudulent transactions (see Knoedler Gallery scandal). Plausible deniability is a commonly used defense to deflect accountability. Furthermore, auction houses distance themselves in issues of provenance or authorship, as they are not in the business of ascribing authenticity. (See the standard wordage explaining terms and conditions of sale for Christie's or Sotheby's, for example.) These loopholes that allowed many of de Hory's fakes to fast track to public institutions and private collections are the same pathways that facilitate present-day forgers and fakers. Forged De Hory forgeries De Hory's dubious distinction as an accomplished forger gave him the fame and name recognition he long desired. One offshoot of his notoriety he never anticipated was the wealth of fake "Elmyrs" that has flooded the marketplace since his death in 1976, demonstrating the relentless resourcefulness of fraudsters and the inherent irony of this largely undetected scam. It is unsurprising that De Hory's odyssey is used as a template by fellow art criminals. What he and they have had in common is alacrity in the exploitation and profiteering that a mostly unregulated art market affords on both sides of the legal divide. De Hory's self-image What we are left with is an incomplete picture of de Hory, a complex but secretive man unable to shed his outlaw image, an adept role player, charismatic as many con-men tend to be, and whose notions