Fernand Legros

Fernand Legros (French: [ləɡʁo]; 26 January 1931 – 7 April 1983) was an art dealer who for over a decade, from the middle 1950s until the late 1960s, sold the forged artworks of Elmyr de Hory,[1] an artist and "the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time" (taken from the title of Clifford Irving's biography of de Hory, "Fake!

[2] Born on 26 Janvier 26, 1931 in Ismaïlia in the Kingdom of Egypt to a French father and Greek mother,[3] Legros first wished to be a ballet dancer.

Legros fooled many art dealers, collectors and museums into buying forgeries, and the whereabout of most of the De Hory fakes is still unknown.

In 1967 the widow of Andre Derain question the authenticity of one of the forgeries and "two Dufys and a Vlaminck offered by Legros to the house were handed over to police"[9].

After a lengthy trial in Paris, Legros was sentenced to four years in prison but was immediately set free, having already spent an equivalent time in various jails.