He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art. So I have a whale vertebrae the size of this table. The Frick's very focal; they're very small; they're very focal. It's a temple. It's a crazy catastrophe of storage. JUDITH RICHARDS: Thinking of boyhood passions, you talked about war, and did you ever want to collect armor? So we drove down there and, JUDITH RICHARDS: That was your first car? We all say, "What's wrong? [Laughs.] CLIFFORD SCHORER: It was a good, you know, three or four years of financing deals that, you know, I found particularly exciting and interesting, and the paintings that we were ablethat I was able to sort of touch in an abstract way were paintings I could never otherwise touch. You know, that was the biggest problem. Or whose voice will impact this collection that's sort of held for the public trust? [00:08:00], CLIFFORD SCHORER: So he would've comehe would've come into America then, and didn't speak English becausefrom what I could tell, his English was a second languageand then became an engineer. JUDITH RICHARDS: Is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of future aspirations? But I just didn't have enough practice. JUDITH RICHARDS: And you bought it? So, I was in Plovdiv and, you know, had a good time with wandering around, you know. Three, four years. They have, you knowone of the greatest mosaics in America is hidden behind a coat check. Winslow Homer. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So that was fine. Because, actually, I got rid of the Victorian, and I now live in a Gropius house. You know, they're, JUDITH RICHARDS: Are thereare there any particular scholars that have taken this very broad approach to art history who were important to you? Periodically, they'll have them here in New York when theythey'll have a dinner with the Belgian ambassador, and they do this sort of thing. She's great. Wikimedia Commons. 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." You know, something like that, where I'm just fortunate enough to be at the right place in history at the right moment when scholarship is what it is, to be able to sort of take something and lift it up out of the quagmire and say, "Look, this is correct. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And then it moves to Amsterdam, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. $14. JUDITH RICHARDS: Right. So those private collectors often didn't have professionalother than dealers and advisers that were outside of their, you know, home, they didn't have in-house curators who made, you know, art historical decisions or collecting decisions. So that's always. I think we're right-sized for the moment for the market. They also had a book that went with the Procaccini called Procaccini in America, which was a very well-researched book by Brigstocke, and I was very impressed. And it was obsessive. I mean, it's been a lot more fun than I ever would have imagined. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, why does this woman look like a skeleton? And again, I mean, I don'tbecause it's not a family legacy business for me; I'm not planning on handing this off to a son, so I have to think very carefully about what the next generation of the Agnew's company will be. I've got some Portuguese examples. You, 30 years ago. And I said, "Well, I'm not going back.". 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. It was, you know, it was Rome. JUDITH RICHARDS: So this was the mid-'80s? My mother wasmy mother was a single mother who was living away from the house 90 percent of the time. I mean, there are many historical examples of seeing some particular painting in a museum and just standing there for 25 minutes and saying, you know, "I can't believe this painting. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, so. You know, they had the large office. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So their largest triceratopsian specimen is mine. I lived in Montreal off and on. JUDITH RICHARDS: spent five dollars and you get a thousand stamps? CLIFFORD SCHORER: I was stillI was still interested in stamps and coins. I believe it's still the biggest. So you have lots of interesting things in Bulgaria, but they're basically in the sort of, you know, big, communist, ornate, central museum in Sofia. Only a. I bought theI think I bought the first painting I ever bought, an Old Master painting, at one of those flea markets. So, JUDITH RICHARDS: When you say "we," you mean you and. CLIFFORD SCHORER: He stayed with my mother. So I walked across the bridge with the gun towers, and you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And these folks were traders. In my mind, I have a totally different collection, which is that I had unlimited funds for 25 years, and I selectively purchased the 19 works that came through the marketplace that I should have purchased. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. JUDITH RICHARDS: This is Judith Olch Richards interviewing Clifford J. Schorer III, on June 6, 2018, at the Archives of American Art offices in New York City. previous 1 2 next sort by previous 1 2 next * Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. That'sthose are the best. And I could buy that at, you know, the auctions. And I left and I started the company. I mean, it's not a viewing area; it's not a formalI mean, it, you know. [00:34:02], CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well, that touches on another one of my collecting areas, actually. London? I think that they're, shall we say, more demanding of one's time, so you have to be available for them, and you have to work with them more individually. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Hugh Brigstocke. And so he gave me this Hefty bag and he told me to sort it. So part of what you were studying wasn't just the work; it was the market. She shifted her little chair over, and I walked by. There were interesting stories in those paintings. JUDITH RICHARDS: During these years, were you reading in that field then? That was [00:06:00]. You know, I wouldn't stop. [00:52:00]. JUDITH RICHARDS: So you describe the place you live in Boston as not as having one work of art, right now. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a commercial lithographer for two years before becoming a freelance illustrator in 1857. JUDITH RICHARDS: Did Skinner know what was happening? And the market was not very discerning, because there were enough people in it to absorb all that material. JUDITH RICHARDS: How long were you at Gillette? Last year waswe had a three-day thing in Rome. $14. But when I finally did that, I did start, likeI made, like, display walls of, you know, particular things. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well, an art handler to move things around. [00:24:00], JUDITH RICHARDS: So going back to the export porcelain. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, to me, that was that was very exciting. JUDITH RICHARDS: You mentioneddid you grow uphow long did you live in the city where you were born? CLIFFORD SCHORER: So I did two things at the same time, and you're going to laugh. Clifford Schorer Co Founder & Director Mr. Schorer is a serial entrepreneur who specializes in the start-up acquisition and development of small and mid-sized companies. [Laughs.] CLIFFORD SCHORER: so, there weren't purpose-specific stamp and coin auctions in Boston, really. New York? [00:32:05]. I mean, you readwith this contemporary art market soaring. Or you were intimidated about going to the museum? There wereby the time, I mean, by the time Ithe irony of the story is that I then became a bankruptcy liquidator. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. [00:16:00]. But Professor Wiggins was ahe was, I think, the head of Fidelity's either Magellan Fund or Puritan Fund. I'm always the general on my projects. Winslow Homer Casting, Number Two, 1894. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, it's very unusual forwell, when you talk about old art, and you talk about a, you know, an institutional collection, I know, for example, Worcester Art Museum has a policy, as do most American museums, you cannot lend to. And, you know, we were talking yesterday about the Museum of Science. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And in a way, I felt absolutely noyou know, that was a, you know, the Buddhist gesture of releasing. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, I've alwaysI don't know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: in the fine art world, it wasn't there. Summary: An interview with Clifford Schorer conducted 2018 June 6-7, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art and the Center for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick Art Reference Library of The Frick Collection, at the offices of the Archives of American Art in New York, New York. So the gallery has a very good stock book system. [Laughs.] They were independent at that point; now they work for Christie's, and then theyactually, recently they've left Christie's; one has left Christie's and the other has as well. But I did buy things that were interesting. View Details. Do you have all your collections in a database, or what kind of inventory do you keep? CLIFFORD SCHORER: That's very funny. That was sort of my. That is. CLIFFORD SCHORER: yeah. It didn't say exactly, but it was a level. I know you read books. [Affirmative.] I like to go back and forth to Paris. But, yes, I mean, I think having a high-end warehouse where, you knowI would like to be the service provider in that equation and not the gallerist, because, to me, it'sno matter what you do, it's a clinical experience. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Because the people I knew [laughs] when I was 17 were 60. 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. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, I thought it was great, yes. JUDITH RICHARDS: Did you find it fulfilling? And there's no further I can go. But because of the scarcity, it can't at all occupy as much time and. JUDITH RICHARDS: And most of the people bidding at auction in those days were the wholesalers. I'm in Southborough, Massachusetts. I guessI guess I felt a bit insecure about the fact that I needed their help to learn something. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Frustrating, enjoyable, you know, disheartening. JUDITH RICHARDS: Was that based on a body of work that the galley owns? I said, "I'll leave the car and I'll walk." And at the end of that exerciseI have some wonderful photos of that house, because it wasI sold that house two years agoand it was a long process. I mean, it's those kinds of crazy, you knowI mean, you think about it. I don't own them now. The grave site of Clifford J Schorer. How much institutions' collecting is based on what collectors want to collect versuspossibly versus what the curators want to collect. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, it's very arbitrary, and I think maybe they were going to open it later, and maybe they weren't. JUDITH RICHARDS: Well, let's remember to get back to that. So it was quite easy to understand the. JUDITH RICHARDS: Why did you focus on Boston for college? And also, I'm obsessed with these pivot moments in time, so the events that lead to unforeseen consequences much later on. These 27 are unaffordable. It's actually, you knowit's the kernel of what you do as a collector without the headache of the aftermath. This is incredible." JUDITH RICHARDS: Yes. So my grandparents, whom I adoredmy grandfather and grandmotherthey lived on Long Island, CLIFFORD SCHORER: They lived on Long Island in a town called Freeport. A Roman mosaic. And that risk is that that day, that buyer is not in the room. CLIFFORD SCHORER: We packed up everything to go down there. So, yeah, I mean, there are some instances, but those kinds of thingsso we're doing that, and obviously, we're open and exploring ideas of what the next show will be. So that is something I did with them. And we would oftenyou know, we would find that in even a five-word conversation we understood what each of our aesthetics was and, you know, how we felt about different things that we were potentially going to bid against each other on. He's like, "Well, I can't tell you much, but there were some payment issues." CLIFFORD SCHORER: And that was talking to art historians, which is something. And I stillI still have quite a few drawings that are related to paintings that are interesting to me. JUDITH RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. So you could borrow our Bacon if we can borrow your Rembrandt. JUDITH RICHARDS: Well, I want to talk about the gallery tomorrow. You're welcome. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I think so, yes. And if I understood all those things, and we had a yes, then they had my money, but otherwiseso, for them, I think often, you know, I was not the first choice. But I think that I'm not willing to roll that roulette wheel. Taste-making is a very difficult game, and, you know, obviously, we're outgunned by Vogue magazine, all the way down toyou know, Cond Nast Publications to, you know, you name itto Sotheby's. CLIFFORD SCHORER: My understanding is it's around 1911 and '12, yeah. JUDITH RICHARDS: because most of the material was only sold at auction? So I mean, you know, it's fun. And I understand why; you know, some of the scholars are superannuated, and they're just not in the game anymore, and there's a verythere has been a very forceful cabal of dealers who've manipulated the market. It's the same problem. [00:34:00]. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And often, those are the ones I cannot afford under any circumstances. You know, because she died in this plague. Or is it changing? JUDITH RICHARDS: Have you been involved with other arts institutions besides Worcester? CLIFFORD SCHORER: That would've been a little bit early. Anthony's family livesthey own the Isle of Bute in [. [00:28:03], JUDITH RICHARDS: Was your business background also important to them? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. I sold all the export wares. And my grandfather, similarly, was not particularly book-learned but was an incredible engineer. So you know, they have a castI mean, there are only three complete specimens, so you basically getyou buy a cast of one if you want to show one. It wasit was a vestige of youth. I mean, I would certainly say that having a gallery creates an inherent conflict of interest that I have to think carefully about. For example, I am a big fan of [Giulio Cesare] Procaccini. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And that'sshe may be retired now. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I mean, I readwhen I get involved in something, I read obsessively. So it was very depressing. I enjoyed my job. ], JUDITH RICHARDS: At what pointat what point did you think about putting aside, possibly in storage, or selling that first Chinese porcelain collection? So for the average buyer, philosophically thinking about that, they think, Okay, well, I'm going to sell this, and I'm not going to pay a commission. Winslow Homer Key West, Hauling Anchor, 1903. CLIFFORD SCHORER: where you sort ofyou readyou know, I've read some really interesting studies of juvenile ceratopsians and how their horn formations develop. So we're all competing for the same limited consignments, for examplegalleries and the auction houses. 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. 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. And so, you know, I bought a territory with a partner, and we have a territory, and basically, you know, we go to an annual meeting, and we have a dinner with the managers, and that's ourso, in a sense, I was able to sort of extract myself from project-based businesses to at least have this background income that would support a very marginal lifestyle, which is what I live. Think we 're all competing for the public trust wandering around, you know, disheartening collect armor some issues. 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