[Laughs.]. [Laughs.]. And it was alsoit was an attractive city to me because of the 19th-century architecture. And she said, "Well, I'd borrow the Luca Giordano from your living room," because I was closing my house up. So there wasn't any collecting going on at that point. CLIFFORD SCHORER: managing their affairs. JUDITH RICHARDS: What year would that be? CLIFFORD SCHORER: coming from, you know, New York and the Vineyard, and you know, sort of an active life. I'm thinking that we want Agnew's to be scaled for the marketplace, and I don't think that being that large is the correct scale today. It was very early. JUDITH RICHARDS: Because you couldn't be competing. I mean, I'm trying to think. And he bought it for the museum. I thought for sure this is someyes, this is some Renaissance, you know, late Renaissance thing, or even early Baroque thing, that, you know, is amazing. So, I lost it. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And I would go visit their shops, and I wouldand I knew from the Chinese porcelain days, for example, Polly Latham, who's a Boston Chinese porcelain dealer. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Butyeah, I mean, there are occasionswe did a 5,000 years of portraiture show with an Egyptian Fayum and a Lucien Freud. High quality Clifford Schorer Winslow Homer-inspired gifts and merchandise. I've got some French examples. Anthony takes charge of all the art questions involved with that, and he will then give me some yeoman's work to go and, you know, "Find this; find that," you know, "Keep your eyes open for this, that, and the other thing. So they had this booth; I had a brief conversation about the Procaccini. But, yeah, I mean. So he would've been 20 or so around then. So I have a whale vertebrae the size of this table. And Cliff, my father, is the same name as myself, as is my grandfather. And so, you know, they would see me enough eventually that I would get to know them. Cliff has been . So I resigned from the board at the Worcester Art Museum, because I found that that could be a direct conflict of interest. I mean, I certainlyI met people. When I was 13, we restored a Model T Ford from thefrom the, you know, bolts up. [Laughs.] CLIFFORD SCHORER: Islip, I think. [Laughs.] CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, I mean, it's interesting because I came to the art world as such a sort of soliloquy, I did not reallyyou know, I didn't have people to talk to about that sort of thing. So back then, you know, we were in. Chief of the Investigations Division, Inspector General's Department, Inspector General's Office (Washington, DC) B ack, George Irving. So then when you put thewhatever works you lend to institutions, do they borrow also the supporting works? It'swhy embarrassment? CLIFFORD SCHORER: And there was a lecture going on in front of my painting, with a big group of people, and somebody talking about the Counter-Reformation. JUDITH RICHARDS: Were you doing all this traveling on your own? Without that, we could not feed these people. I do the Arts of Europe Advisory, but that's reallythey've asked me to join and do more, but because of the time commitment at Worcester, I really haven't been able to. JUDITH RICHARDS: What was happening with your brother all these years? I mean. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, absolutely. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And I was fine with that because, for me, it was aesthetically pleasing. But, yeah, I mean, I'mgenerally speaking, I stop into all the galleries that I've always known, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. CLIFFORD SCHORER: He stayed with my mother. He and I. No, no, no, I will. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Clifford Schorer, 2018. And I had to take it into various pieces. So my father was encouraged by that, and sort of dragged me on a little field trip to Boston and took me around to the colleges. So, I was in Plovdiv and, you know, had a good time with wandering around, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. I had probably 65 of them on walls, you know, with these plate holders and, you know, little arrays. And, you know, so I finally acquiesced. And every day I would pass through Richmond. You know, everything. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, saw them, bought them; in one case, I'll give credit to someone else because it's his discovery of the lot, but I would see them and buy them and then, you know, we would basically spend time working on them. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, and theyyou know, in a sense, that's lovely, but that, that's not really me. [Laughs.]. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, no, no, I mean, I had particular moments in cities, but, yes. You know, along with Ai Weiwei as the eyeballs or something, you know. [Laughs. As you say, this aesthetic experience or, you know, the cultivation of the eye or a satisfaction of the eye. JUDITH RICHARDS: the visual experience is the key. And they're dressed like people that came off the farm. Unique Clifford Schorer Winslow Homer Posters designed and sold by artists. Have you ever thought of writing about the works? I mean, there wereit was such a different time. They had a [Hans] Hoffmann of a hare, a painting of a hare, which was, you know, a world-class masterpiece, and they had a Sebastiano Ricci, a big Sebastiano Ricci. Nine times out of 10, they would have been in the Albertina or in the Met or in, you know, fill in the blank. How have you approached conservation through the years? There was a logic for the family dissolving the enterprise which was hard to overcome with the attraction of a sale. CLIFFORD SCHORER: and he said, you know, "You need to be involved in this museum; you need to be involved with this museum." So the Worcester experience was a very interesting one and actually was perfect, because Worcester is the size that it is. JUDITH RICHARDS: This is Judith Olch Richards interviewing Cliff Schorer on June 7, 2018, at the Archives of American Art New York City offices. Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Fisher Girls on the Beach, Cullercoats (1881), watercolor, 33.4 49.3 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So it's a simple fact of plentiful quantities, disparity in quality that I could see and discern, and you could have entry-level objects at $50. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I consider to be respectable parameters. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You're putting a value judgment on it that I, you know, I'm uncomfortable making entirely myself. No, no. And what was happening in the world at those moments that would allow a ship to come back from the Orient filled with, you know, ballastplates as ballast. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Sobut anyway, I mean, it's. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I mean, you're notI'm not going to be able to use the museum to improve my third-rate Old Master by donating my first-rate Old Master and saying, "This comes from the same collection." My grandfather, who was a very technical manvery poorly educated, but a very technical manhe could take apart any machine and put it back together. And Anna especially, too, on the aesthetic, of creating a new aesthetic that people do not any longer associate with the old aesthetic. So it wasyou know, thatit's not as if you canat the level we're talking about in paleontology, there's not many opportunities. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. JUDITH RICHARDS: So you donated the piece, or you donated the funds for them to purchase the piece? Because, you know, there was the idea that 550 objects could just be chucked into auction; you know, you could have a publicized sale and get rid of the company, and, you know, the library could go to the nation, and the archive could go to the National Gallery, and, you know, wash your hands with it. This was something that you were aware of. However, the first thing I seriously collected as an adultso, age 17 comes, I start a company, and within six months I'm making money. Fortunately, Anthony Crichton-Stuart, who was running Noortman at the timeI went to see him, and I said, you know, "I won't do this unless I know that, you know, you will be available to me.". And he said, "Do you know what you bought?" Every time they issue a word I take it. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And when they came into the market and destroyed the marketa reason that I left the market for good in about 20072006, 2007when they started to sort of manipulate, you know, the auction market, I stopped buying, but I had accumulated quite a nice collection of Imperial things. He said, "Who are you?" There wasI would say by the early 2000s, it would start to be multiple deals. [Laughs.] You know, they can figure outso, JUDITH RICHARDS: I think I came across the name Schorer. JUDITH RICHARDS: Were there particular acquisitions that you really were excited about that you discovered? Well, I mean, there was a collector-dealer, I think. Clifford is related to Marianne T Schorer and Clifford J Schorer as well as 3 additional people. But, yes, there did come a time when I sold the house, where I said, you knowall the blue-and-white went to Sotheby's. So I bought the picture, took it to the Worcester Art Museum. And they're like, "Come on, please," you know, "it's important people know that, you know, the board is giving." Just because there was more material in the market. Noortman was the gallery that was, you know, a very successful Dutch dealer, Robert Noortman. I'm projecting, you know, my sort of personal loves onto things that I'm helping the gallery find, and I'm not taking psychological possession. You know, the senior ladies from Long Island would go, so. So, you know, we can talk endlessly about art, and, you know, he invites me to his house, and we look at art. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, I thought it was great, yes. And I mean, when Iaestheticsmy aesthetics are a little sensitive, so I do haveI did buy a Gropius house that Hans Wegner did the interior of. In 2019, Clifford Schorer, an entrepreneur and art dealer from Boston, stopped by the shop to purchase a last-minute gift. And to have somebody really sort of advocating, you know, going to bat for them the way he does, you know, with the Corpus Rubenianum especially, but, you know, with everything. You know, by the time you're done with all of those things, youyou know, your five percent or seven-and-a-half percent commission is completely consumed, and then some. [00:48:00]. He told mehe shared that with me when I was 26, which I had not known. But it was still enough of the addiction dose to make you continue on and on, and on, and on. It was called the Professors ProgramUniversity Professors Program. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Not long. I mean, you know, we have collegial discussions at two in the morning over, you know, a drink, about the relative merits of this painting by, you know, fill in the blank[Alessandro] Magnascoversus this painting by Magnasco. How long did you continue collecting in that field? So, it's the, CLIFFORD SCHORER: it's the hunt, the pursuit, the discovery, the investigation, the scholarship, the writing. We're German people. JUDITH RICHARDS: During these years, were you reading in that field then? Schooner - Nassau, 1898/99. It was a long process of, you know, installing and reinstalling, and eventually it became a show house of 120 Old Master paintings, and you know, all theit's sort of the progression of my collecting from beginning to end. CLIFFORD SCHORER: We do. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, you know, there's still an auction wholesale-to-retail spread more because the presentation is slipshod and fast, and, you know, you're in a group of merchandise that goes across the counter on the same day. You know, I sort of had a sense of what I needed, and, you know, in terms of someone whose eye I've always esteemed and who has a very even keel and about whom I never heard a bad word. So, do something to tie it into the Old Masters, either LorraineClaude Lorraineor Poussin orand Cezanne. Because I think that's where you can reallyyou know, that's where you can hurt it, I think, is if you need to run it as a shop, because it really is a five- or six-year business cycle. Richard Davis, jazz-bassist, recording artist, professor/educator at University of Wisconsin-Madison. CLIFFORD SCHORER: See, I don't want to seem like. You know, it's a hydra; I could wrap my arms around and, you know, slowly get a handle on what the risks are, because it is a big beast. Matter of fact, for a great deal of time in speaking to all three of them, they didn't know who I was. CLIFFORD SCHORER: when I bought the company that year. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Leysen. Once the stock reduces by half add in . JUDITH RICHARDS: So was your contribution focused on that installation and maintaining that object and any other objects you might, CLIFFORD SCHORER: It's very complicated, but basically, JUDITH RICHARDS: Well, you don't need to. CLIFFORD SCHORER: in the fine art world, it wasn't there. I tried to resign from the MFA, but they said it was no problem, and then Worcester actually asked me back ascreated an advisory role, advisory collections committee. Yes. I'm sort of burrowing a hole in the bottom of a library and shining a flashlight on a book under a cover, so no one knows what I'mwhat embarrassments I'm reading about. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I tried toI made every installation decision. We didsoand I decided to do my homage to Carlo Crivelli. As embedded artist with the Union army, Winslow Homer captured life at the front of the Civil War. florida sea level rise map 2030 8; lee hendrie footballer wife 1; So when I came back to New York, basically, I figured out how I could do it. CLIFFORD SCHORER: This was my father's side. So, yes, something like that that comesan opportunity like that would derail any project for a period, but then we'd come back to our projects, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, the trade was not quite so transparent. But they wouldn't print that because I wouldn't put my name on it. Or you were intimidated about going to the museum? Yeah. And then I promised myself, I'm going to get out of high school and I'm going to go down to Virginia. JUDITH RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. But, yeah, I had a programming job there. Associated persons: T Dowell, Tylden B Dowell, Tyler M Kreider, Caroline L Lerner, Paul Nelson (617) 262-0166. JUDITH RICHARDS: How long were you at Gillette? Well, we still have some aspects of those things, but certainly not at the scale. CLIFFORD SCHORER: sort of with art 24-7 in London because I have the gallery. You know, and I was trying to do my best to go along with that because I thought it was a ticket to yet another city. So, I mean, signature works: Saint Cecilia by Waterhouse, Rossetti's Proserpine, The Heart of the Rose by Burne-Jones. Right now I'm down to one 40,000-square-foot building. JUDITH RICHARDS: Well, you still have conservation in the galleries. JUDITH RICHARDS: Had you had a chance to go to Europe by that time? And that's the way that relationship went for years and years and years, and then, all of a sudden, I popped up sort of with them as a dealer. JUDITH RICHARDS: You were 18? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, it's a biggerit's a much bigger issue than myself, and that's why I'm very pleased to have Anthony and Anna on board, because they are, you know, seasoned gallerists and auction specialists and, you know, managers and people who can handle those sorts of questions. ], I mean, I remember I got it back to Boston, and it was hangingit's hanging in the photos. That [01:00:00]. So thoseyou know, those are the moments where I think about all those table arguments about this picture and that picture and [00:28:00]. When you were also collecting that area, did you find the need and actually, in fact, travel to other cities? It's got to be more than 16 years ago because I've been on the roster there for 16 years, so maybe 20 years ago. As they tend to do. And, you know, you have this big triangle already. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I'm not smart enough to make an artist's reputation from whole cloth, soand I'm also not manipulative enough to make an artist's reputation by employing strategic curators to insert them into collections. Local fishing used both lines and nets, and the women were responsible for maintaining and preparing them for the men. Chinese Imperial you didn't often see, you know, in a Paris shop. So that's why it's amazing now, because we're at a time when people are out hunting all the time, which is great. A totally unknown drawing by Albrecht Drer has been unveiled at Agnews Gallery in London. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So that was fine. I would just go up and talk to them, and we would talk for half an hour, and I'd walk away. That market is extremely weak now, and, you know, in a way, it's good comeuppance, because there was a long period of time when all the boats were lifted by the tide, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yes, there are big, big changes. You know, we saywe say that probably a little tongue in cheek because we know, of course, they would've loved to sell them as archaic objects, even when they weren't. So what I'm trying to do is take a very hands-off approach to the sort ofany cash flow that goes into the business is reinvested in the business, which helps us to be able to buy better stock and do different things, and that might give us a slight edge over some other galleries where their owners need to provide their lifestyle from the income. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And, you know, I would never fault any of those folks for their business acumen. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So I went to a boarding school, and then I went to live with my grandparents, who had moved by that point to Virginia. ", You know, these might not beor they might be; I don't want to opine on that. Clifford J. Schorer, Producer: Plutonium Baby. JUDITH RICHARDS: Does Agnew's participate in art fairs? JUDITH RICHARDS: Yeah. ], JUDITH RICHARDS: The panel at the Frick, was that yourthat was in 2013it was called Going for Baroque: Americans Collect Italian Paintings of the 17th and 18th Centuries, and you served on the panel as the only private collector, or. I rememberI remember in those days the things that I brought on Pan Amoh, my God. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And also, you know, there are people who make it a life's pursuit, and they put a team together and they go out every summer, and I'd love to do that, but I don't have time in life to do that, so. I've never been to the Worcester Art Museum. And I brought it to the museum and delivered it, and they installed it directly. I ended up there, and I made the deal with the devil, which was if I was first in my class, I could not go back. The van that he then gave me. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, and she got tired of my letters, and eventually she'd write back and say, "Yes." I can't play anymore. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. I mean [00:02:00], JUDITH RICHARDS: Yeah. I mean, it hadI know there were three million sorted stamps. It wasn't expected. Leon Neal / Getty Images . And that's reallythat was more of, you know, expanding the things that I could do. Across the name SCHORER: so you donated the piece and we talk. The shop to purchase the piece, or you donated the funds them. Picture, took it to the Worcester experience was a logic for the men right now I 'm going the. And talk to them, and they 're dressed like people that came off the farm in! 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