I mean, it happens in New York all the time for shows. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I leave that to Anna and Anthony, and, you know, I come in and I nod my head in approval, because they have such amazing taste. He would run around to continental auctions back before the internet, and now the kids and I do a lot. CLIFFORD SCHORER: That is from my paleontological collecting. And they didn't hire me as a senior programmer analyst, but they did hire me as a programmer analyst. Local fishing used both lines and nets, and the women were responsible for maintaining and preparing them for the men. So, certainly, there is a change in dynamic, you know, where it is hard for a gallery to charge a sufficient commission to be able to cover the costs of doing the job right when one is up against a buyerI mean, an ownerwho thinks that the services that the auction house is providing are paid for by the buyer. JUDITH RICHARDS: So, in thoseyou mentioned your great-grandfather and his collectionwhen you were in grade school, and even in high school, what were your main interests? Any object there that might have a mark. As you say, this aesthetic experience or, you know, the cultivation of the eye or a satisfaction of the eye. You know, I'd justI would just go there. Are there any people there who sort of are the continuation? JUDITH RICHARDS: No, no, no, this is very important, JUDITH RICHARDS: what you were talking about. And, you know, it's sort of rare that a dealer in 2000 could mount such an exhibition. You, 30 years ago. I'm done. I was likethis is incredible. And they said, "You're out of your mind." JUDITH RICHARDS: people educating you in some way about the field? Do you get, CLIFFORD SCHORER: No, no. As a museum president, I saw that, you know, the risk that the curator's friend who happens to be an artist gets a monographic show. And this was an example of something that they made to commemorate the 100-year anniversary, probably around 1744 or so, of the VOC [United East India Company] making entres into China to sell the export goods. Literally, very, very inexpensive. So, you know, that was a good start and I enjoyed that. So you've gotyou can put them side by side. No, no. So, in other words, the entire world previously had been constructed around those dedicated 80 collectors who came to the market, who came to the oasis once a year to buy a painting, be it Maastricht, be it Sotheby's New York, whatever it is. JUDITH RICHARDS: Do you want to mention any specifics? I'm improving the collection. Just a sense of [laughs], CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, in a way. So part of what you were studying wasn't just the work; it was the market. ", So he called them over, and I said, "This is amazing, but why is this an antiquity? I would have purchased some of the assets; we may have purchased some of the inventory. Do you have all your collections in a database, or what kind of inventory do you keep? Generally speaking, the book presentations are in Antwerp. I mean, the auction house generally won't give that information, because you're a client and they want, JUDITH RICHARDS: So it's up to you to reach out to the field. As embedded artist with the Union army, Winslow Homer captured life at the front of the Civil War. JUDITH RICHARDS: And there are fewer young. I used to go to TEFAF all the time. So, you know. But has there been an increase in some competition, or the alternative? And just, you know, wander around and pull books. JUDITH RICHARDS: Just a sense of knowing what the price should be, JUDITH RICHARDS: or what's been bid in the past, JUDITH RICHARDS: what it sold at so that you don't feel. Their collection was just chock-a-block with things that had nothing to do with museum collections. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. Clifford lived on month day 1984, at address, North Carolina. And it was an area I didn't know, and you know. So I wrote to her several times and said, you know, "Is this Crespi? That was completely alone. So that's where, obviously, you know, this is coming to the end of the period when I thought that it was practical to buy these things. No, no. However Selina held upon the woman's dignity by not really responding. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well, the big London galleries. I love that. [Affirmative.] [Laughs.]. JUDITH RICHARDS: You're going to art auctions? Howwhat was the process of that reattribution officially? JUDITH RICHARDS: What year would that be? You know, it's always a problem. I'm certain it was with Mildred, because she was very involved in all of those things. So, JUDITH RICHARDS: [Laughs.] So that kind of closed that circle, but. I mean, as a matter of fact, CLIFFORD SCHORER: There was a day when I all of sudden said, you know, I can collect paintings. JUDITH RICHARDS: Is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of future aspirations? So, you know, as you say, you know, as we were talking about yesterday, that intersection of conception and craft. CLIFFORD SCHORER: No. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Still living in Boston, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that'sthe ones who have open doors will always have my heart. And then we. I was definitelywe had a pretty weak art library at the Boston Public Library because it was all behind a key, so you had to apply for a book. "You want a bottle of mineral water? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, I've alwaysI don't know. I mean, thatand also, you know, when you getwhen you go to the Old Master market, if you really want to focus on something, you really can't go to any tertiary auction houses. During this period of time, the first decade of the century, were you coming across any preparatory drawings or other related material to these major works that you were studying and acquiring, or trying to acquire? The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Clifford Schorer on June 6 and 7, 2018. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. Chinese Imperial you didn't often see, you know, in a Paris shop. But the turnaround comes: the Procaccini was owned by [Piero] Corsini. It took till 2011 to finally redeem myself [laughs] from that failure to buy the Ricci on the spot and decide to walk around and think about it, which was my biggest mistake ever. We had a cocktail party last night at someone's house; it was all the board members. So, you know, you have theseyou have those happy happenstances. Let's see. JUDITH RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And again, it's very subjective. I spoke to the auctioneers quite a bit. CLIFFORD SCHORER: by someone who possessed it. CLIFFORD SCHORER: But you know, Chesterfield is a certain type of geo-politic. So it was an interesting thing. JUDITH RICHARDS: This is on your father's side? You know, with the exception, of course, of some of the contemporary galleries which are really making the money. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And they decided to move to, you know, some pastoral landscape down south, not knowing at all what that meant. CLIFFORD SCHORER: It is difficult for, you know, someone who's used to running a 20,000-employee, for-profit operation to come into a 160-employee museum and understand how this expenditure furthers the mission, rather than, you know, a profit model or efficiency model. JUDITH RICHARDS: Is that the first time you've encountered that kind of [laughs] situation? Because you know, thenand you understand what happens there. I guessI guess I felt a bit insecure about the fact that I needed their help to learn something. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Just the gallery in London, right. Lotte Laserstein was a Weimar German artist, a female artistamazing artistand Agnew's had sort of rediscovered her in the 1960s and then did a show, a monographic show, in the 1980s. He's the responsible party, solely responsible. So, to me, that was, you knowthat was my day at that curator table, where I was silent the whole time, and at the end, I just sort of put the trump card down. He would give me projects to do. But the languages that I really learned and loved were French and the Slavic languages. I mean, I think that right nowso what we did in the interim is, we did this portraiture show which brought in, CLIFFORD SCHORER: It brought in Kehinde Wiley, Lucien Freud, and, CLIFFORD SCHORER: you know, otheryou know, Kehinde Wiley's. CLIFFORD SCHORER: too much of a philistine, but obviously economics play a role in my thinking when Ilet me rephrase it, so that I seem less a charlatan. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I'm relying on smart people to tell me about things and, you know, say, Oh, this is interesting, or, This is not. You know, the senior ladies from Long Island would go, so. And one professor in particular became a very close friend. I was very impressed with all of it, you know; the effort as a dealer was astonishing. It's the big gallery at the MFA. You know, they had the large office. Anthony's family livesthey own the Isle of Bute in [. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I don't even know. And she said, "Well, I'd borrow the Luca Giordano from your living room," because I was closing my house up. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Or the auction houses, yeah. [00:02:00]. Do you have a year that you, CLIFFORD SCHORER: I kind of had a hard stop at 1650 in Rome, but in Naples, I took it right to 1680. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. CLIFFORD SCHORER: It was a little municipal museum. Traditional age to start college? So I do have paper files, and now, in my current computer, I will have a rudimentary fact sheet and photographs of just about every painting. So the painting ended up going to auction at Sotheby's, with a lower estimate. Where you. All the time. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. So I was independent; I mean, I was independent from a very young age. So, yes. Available in a range of colours and styles for men, women, and everyone. Winslow Homer. You know, it was important to me that that's the type of person, you know, sink or swim, whetheryou know, I didn't want a shark. I ran into him at TEFAF. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Or related to artists that are interesting to me. So, you know, I think that's why I say it's a hobby you can take to your tomb. All of that is gone. 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. That was [00:06:00]. It doesn't have to be, you know, Grandma's attic. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, definitely. So, yes, I spent a lot of time with history in general, not art history, and was always interested in history. CLIFFORD SCHORER: G-A-T-I-A. There's a plaque to my grandfather, dedicated to my grandfather, but it doesn't say anything about me. I mean, also I thought Boston was the most European city in America. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, it, you knowit's been very, JUDITH RICHARDS: They recognize your interest, the. [Laughs.] There can beyou know, that's much more of a contemporary problem. This was something that you were aware of. But there were rare books in there, but it wasn't a focal collection. And that's intentional because, for the first time, I'm living in a building with other people. So it's, to me, those moments. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I said, "No, that's good. [Laughs.] This growing passion? 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. So I went to TEFAF; Hall & Knight hadthis must have been 2000had a phenomenal booth. Winslow Homer's "The Gulf Stream" (1899/reworked by 1906) is the centerpiece of a revelatory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. JUDITH RICHARDS: because most of the material was only sold at auction? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Professor [Ernest] Wiggins. And we've obviously done a lot of work on our Pre-Raphaelite exhibition, which was kind of a protractedwe did, basically, a two-year Pre-Raphaelite fiesta, with lots of publications. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Of course. [00:28:03], JUDITH RICHARDS: Was your business background also important to them? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. You know, you name it. This is what I remember in their booth. 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. CLIFFORD SCHORER: early panel paintings in New England, for example. Why is this not Renaissance?" And said that "If you don't fire him, I'm going to sue you." That wasn't quite enough to buy much, but if you bought secondary names, which meant that you needed to know all the secondary names, and if you bought the best quality of those secondary names, you could do okay. He lived until I was 13 years old. I'm not opposed to the popularizers of history. Investments. And then send it away andI'm trying to remember who did the book. Art collector Cliff Schorer recently located a missing painting by Dutch master Hendrick Avercamp after finding an image of it online on an $18 throw pillow. JUDITH RICHARDS: Was that because you didn't know that they would be able to teach you something? [00:40:10]. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well, I moved around quite a bit. So I wasn't at home there, you know, as a person. I lived in Massapequa, Long Island, for probably an extended period; I would say from about age seven until aboutactually, from about age eight until about 13. CLIFFORD SCHORER: See, I don't want to seem like. I'm at my office; I'm looking the Strozzi up, and I see Worcester Art Museum, and then it dawned on me, Wait a minute, they also have that Piero di Cosimo. Yeah. So when I went to see Anthony and said, you know, "I would do this if you are available and you want to do it with me," and he said, "Well, ironically enough, they just told me that I'm on gardening leave." All orders are custom made and most ship worldwide within 24 hours. He was a dealer and, you know, and an ennobled Italian, and it was in his collection. There were parts of the business I wanted to buy and parts of the business that I didn't want to buy. For an angel, I thought this was [laughs] such an unusual thing, to give them such a worldly attribute, you know, almost a peasant, worldly attribute. 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. [Affirmative.] CLIFFORD SCHORER: I don't want to slight anybody if they think they played that role in my life, but it was a very solitary pursuit. Every time they issue a word I take it. JUDITH RICHARDS: They're based in London? Well, we still have some aspects of those things, but certainly not at the scale. Occupation: Real Estate/Realtor. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And you know, other things happened too. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Mm-hmm. If you like this aestheticwe're trying to sort of coax the camel into the tent, as it were; we're trying to bring an aesthetic that harmonizes with, you know. His oil paintings were immensely expressive. And that was really my main goal. I had two, and I had to sell both. JUDITH RICHARDS: Restorations that are hidden? JUDITH RICHARDS: Have youdo you imagine in the future acquiring another art business? JUDITH RICHARDS: Were therein that fieldbecause I don't know the field very wellis it difficult tois itare there issues of fakes? I'm trying to think. Professor Schorer is a serial entrepreneur who specializes in the start-up acquisition and development of small and mid-sized companies. 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. So he would've been 20 or so around then. JUDITH RICHARDS: or any of that sort of stuff . CLIFFORD SCHORER: Not a registrar. And old man Lewis and I had a few passing conversations in the hallway of his building. So I asked my partnerI said, "Call over the person here. JUDITH RICHARDS: Has it impacted your collecting as you imagined it would or in any different way? [00:38:02]. CLIFFORD SCHORER: But anyway, I mean, noI mean, I knew of the name and the connection, but there's never been any. There they prepared the fish for despatch to the fishmarket in . CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I think, you know, my life is here in the States, and, you know, Ithe fortunate thing is that I haven't quit my day job, because if I relied uponbecause the gallery is an unevena very uneven cash flow. Not just multiple helmets. And so, you know, obviously this is a man with probably a military education in Germany. I do like art storage. JUDITH RICHARDS: What's his name? [1] JUDITH RICHARDS: And how does that manifest itself? He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art. And I would go to those. JUDITH RICHARDS: That just gives me a [laughs] direction. They were able to sell the parts of the collection that were not museum-worthy, but they raised a tremendous amount of money. And that's generallyyou know, you build upon the scholars of the past, and the next scholar may say no. But, yes, I believe so. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And so I was very happy to be there at the moment when they needed the business side to think about things like the real estate, the liability, the employees, you know, the human resource matters, the board relationship between their board and our board when they're being absorbed into our board, that sort of thing. I mean, sure, I absolutely am thrilled when they can do something educational with the material, CLIFFORD SCHORER: to engage somebody in a way that's not just, "Here's a beautiful Old Master painting.". They told me the price range was 5 to 6 million, I believe, and I thought that was odd that they would quote a price range. You know, there are certainly moments in the '60s and '70s when scholarship might have been a little weaker, and they missed something, but in general, right after the war, when everyone else was profiteering, the firm didn't. His realist works present scenes from the Civil War, fishing expeditions, and moments of everyday life in the United States, all genres that helped work to establish a . CLIFFORD SCHORER: In Eastern Europe in the old days, almost always I would give a bribe to be taken through a museum where they frankly couldn't be bothered with any visitors. Well, we talked about that a little earlier. 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