There's a plaque to my grandfather, dedicated to my grandfather, but it doesn't say anything about me. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You can't lend to a private gallery. Is this Crespi?" The book isso, Hugh Brigstocke and his new. So I went through the whole museum. But I wouldin France and Europe, I generallynobody had the money to just go wander around. Have you always maintained fine art storage? Well, I mean, there was a collector-dealer, I think. It'swhy embarrassment? [1:00:00], And when a gallery approaches the person, and says, "Look, we're going to catalogue it; we're going to do this; we're going to take it to this city; we're going to show it at this fair; we're going to do these things; we're going to pay the insurance on it; we're going to pay the shipping and all of these things, and, you know, we'd like to earn 15 percent." JUDITH RICHARDS: You were tired of Virginia. I don't want to do anything fancy." Had you been involved with other institutions before then? JUDITH RICHARDS: Restorations that are hidden? what percentage of baby boomers are millionaires post oak hotel sunday brunch gator patch vs gator pave white sands footprints science. [Laughs.]. Or do I say nothing? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Sure. And though that might have been too bold for our first step out of the box, because it was so much contemporary and so in-your-face, but we had been doing steps in that direction all the way along. You know? The party was also attended by Winslow Homer who was asked by Lady Blake to sketch the children. You talked about improving the collection; are you continually culling and, as you buy better examples, selling lesser examples? So, you know, the oldest stuff there is all these dioramas and things, and I know that they're thinking about the future. 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 . I tried to hire someone who came in, and we had some battle royales over everything. CLIFFORD SCHORER: O-C-K-X, I believe. And I decided my aesthetic. I remember reading his book, just because it was there. JUDITH RICHARDS: When you were doing research and you were reading auction catalogues, those are catalogues with the sale prices written in. There was a Strozzi thatI was looking at Strozzi, and I was trying to figure this Strozzi painting out that I had discovered at a little auction. 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. JUDITH RICHARDS: Was there a particular person who was your mentor? 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. He said, "Well, we'll make you a Corporator." As most 25-year-old men marched off to war in 1861, artist Winslow Homer took a . JUDITH RICHARDS: If there are any remnants? Followers. I liked heavy curtains. Yeah, to me, and I was excited, so excited. Clear the way for the new. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So where some of the other investors may have made a very small return because theytheir gains were diluted by the lossesI was very focused on, you know, "I want this painting and this painting and this painting." JUDITH RICHARDS: Wasare those kinds of panels very useful to you as a collector, let's say, if you were in the audience? CLIFFORD SCHORER: I would say because in thein the space I was operating in, which was not a very high-priced space, the delta between, you know, the wholesale and the retail was so large, because, I mean, really, if you went into an antique shop on Beacon HillI mean, I did, and I bought a number of things therebut if you went in there, you had to really go there to buy something you really had to have, because the price was 3- to 400you know, three to four times3- to 400 percent of what it would be at auction. I remember that. So it was a fun little entre into what the dealers did for a living. JUDITH RICHARDS: You've started your own company, Bottom Line Exchange. JUDITH RICHARDS: What was the interest in traveling through those countries? Rita Albertson at the Worcester Art Museum did a phenomenal restoration. 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. [Laughs.] Howwhat was the process of that reattribution officially? Bree Winslow . CLIFFORD SCHORER: Because I'm in Beacon Hill, I'm going to the local auctions; I'm going to all the auctions. So then when you put thewhatever works you lend to institutions, do they borrow also the supporting works? I mean, you have to be able to provide for everybody that works for the company, but, you know, the company itself may not provide for its shareholders very well. Listing of the Day Location: Provincetown, MassachusettsPrice: $3.399 million This starkly modern and dramatic home was built in 2013 as a guesthouse to an adjacent flat-roofed, glass . 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, you know, those are very exciting moments. To me, what's happened is, it's a lifestyle that maybe is going away, the lifestyle of the sort of dedicated scholar, in high, euphemistic quotes, collector who would buy one major painting per year, who would study, study, study, study, study until they found that moment, and then it would come and they would buy it, and they put it in their collection, and then they die with a 29-painting collection that's extraordinary. I mean. Okay? Objects, not so much. I collect Dutch still lifes; I collect," you know, fill in the blank. Anyway, I bought her lunch, and I got to go into the room. So. Yeah, I haven't doneI didn'tI hadn't done that at that point. No, as a matter of fact, I mean, obviously, we have great respect, and we like the feeling of our gallery in London, and wherever possible, if we can show a painting in kind of our home, you know, bring people into the living room and have the painting on the wall and sit down in front of it and talk about it. I went to Harvard, I said, "I've got to get the microfilm for the Medici Archive." So I know, for example, in Sofia that they have wonderful, you know, Mithraic panels from tombs and things, you know, from altars, because Mithraism was very big during the Roman Empire. That's good." So then flash-forward three years, and it's back on the market again, with a slightly lower estimate this time. I guessI guess I felt a bit insecure about the fact that I needed their help to learn something. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, to me there is where thethat's the crux of the fear. JUDITH RICHARDS: Were there collections in other institutions in Boston that you might've, CLIFFORD SCHORER: Eventually I got access to Harvard, and that was great because then I could troll the stacks, which I did for 20 years every night of my life. I can point out that prices at auction are still 40 percent below the price that a well-executed private sale treaty could be done at, if the buyer and the seller are fully informed and have all the information, understand the importance or lack of importance of the work, you know, the things that an auction doesn't allow for. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Much too generous with attributions. I mean, I'm trying to think. [They laugh.]. JUDITH RICHARDS: level of your interest. I mean, you readwith this contemporary art market soaring. My role was in figuring out the real estate problems that the company had, the finance problems that the company had, the management issues that the company had, but not the art questions. But, of course, the ones who did press me in a different wayand I can names, but I won'tthe ones who kind of tried to sort of turn that conversation into a purchasing experience or get lost, they were out of my book before the 15 minutes was by, because I knew they were charlatans. That was [00:06:00]. I would. They didn't actually want you in there. And it was obsessive. October 16, 2020; Beef And Broccoli. JUDITH RICHARDS: You're serving as your own contractor? [00:16:00], You know, she was waving me away. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So I don't think I could ever give it up. Winslow Homer was a landscape artist. 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. But there is a long-term plan that the museum and I are talking about for the things they want to keep. And you know, for me, when I go back and look at them later, I can laugh at myself, you know. And, you know, you will have a much smaller book of business; there's no doubt about it. CLIFFORD SCHORER: They were basedI think they'rewell, I mean, I know them as international, but, yes, they're based in London. So, I mean, I rememberI remember buying that because I thought it would be a good decoration. You really want something; you offer someone five percent commission, and your costs are 10, you know, and that happens regularly in historic art. New York,NY10010, Dedicated to collecting and preserving the papers and primary records of the visual arts in America, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2023 Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Terra Foundation Center for Digital Collections, Guidelines for Processing Collections with Audiovisual Material, Washington D.C. Headquarters and Research Center, Publications Using Material from the Archives of American Art, Oral history interview with Clifford Schorer, 2018, Art Collectors: A Project in Partnership with the Center for the History of Collecting in America at The Frick Collection, Art -- Collectors and collecting -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews. JUDITH RICHARDS: I mean, certainly in the war zone [laughs], I suspect you were on your own. CLIFFORD SCHORER: No, no, no. JUDITH RICHARDS: When you say "secondary names," those are still artists who would be in museum collections? But I think it was just muscle memory at that point, so. And everything else, they don't care about. JUDITH RICHARDS: And there are fewer young. [They laugh.] Boston. CLIFFORD SCHORER: No, no, no, no, no. They have also lived in Stamford, CT and New York, NY. JUDITH RICHARDS: Which institution is she at? And just, you know, wander around and pull books. So there wasn't alwaysthere was this idea that they werethey must have been from one commission, because they were the same size, but there was not a full knowledge of what this commission was until at least the last decade, when all these pieces came together. You want toyou want to sort ofyou know, you want to have a completely catalogued collection, with every example of, you know, canceled, non-cancelled. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So I went to the director's office, and there's a glass door. So, yes, I've had, over the years, to send things to the art museum or to conservators or to other places to get them out of my house. [00:12:00]. 1-20 out of 147 LOAD MORE. So that's a modern phenomenon, where you have this conflict between, you know, a museum, institutional curator and private collectors who may desire that their collection end up on view and the curator may have opposing views. You know, the senior ladies from Long Island would go, so. Or. JUDITH RICHARDS: Probably there's a few things that happened before that, we haven't touched on. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. 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. I eventually liquidated Best Products. Find Clifford Schorer's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. We can cover a lot of auctions in a night. CLIFFORD SCHORER: It's almost ready. And that's not my world at all. And most of our manuals were in Japanese, because the cash register manufacturers in those days were mostly Japanese. Those people are notthey don't exist now, and they don't exist for a lot of reasons. Anyway, so I asked about the price of that, and I think it was 765,000, which was actually attainable for me. Olive subsequently married John (Jack) Arbuthnot who wrote some of the Beachcomber columns. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, meaning that I would be a more serious financial player in the art market, not a face. Other kinds of pitfalls that you might, CLIFFORD SCHORER: All of the above. So I think that the understanding was there that I was going to do it, so, you know, might as well support him in that decision and then see what happens. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And then it moves to Amsterdam, you know. JUDITH RICHARDS: This is Judith Olch Richards interviewing Cliff Schorer on June 7, 2018, at the Archives of American Art New York City offices. [Laughs.] And why not? CLIFFORD SCHORER: It was very dingy and dark, but it still was a masterpiece. All of a sudden, there's 30 mainland Chinese people in the room. So I went along with it because, you know, I thought, Okay, I'll get some [00:01:59]. 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. 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. JUDITH RICHARDS: Does Agnew's publish? You know, I love that. Available in a range of colours and styles for men, women, and everyone. You know, back then, and they've done a very efficient job of hoovering up the things that, you know, are the greatest examples, and obviously Peter Finer is a phenomenal dealer of arms and armor. JUDITH RICHARDS: Well, you still have conservation in the galleries. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I wentI had a pretty bad high school experience. 15 records for Clifford Schorer. And knowing, of course, that, you know, in a way, sort of on day one, my business challenge was to take a business that was burning, you know, [] 8 million in losses, and flip it off instantly and reopen it as a business that would basically break even or make money, because I was not in the business of buying a company simply to continue the legacy losses of the previous ownership. CLIFFORD SCHORER: sort of with art 24-7 in London because I have the gallery. CLIFFORD SCHORER: My first car was my grandfather's van. It was basicallythey didn't tell me who bought it, but they told me it was reserved, and then shortly thereafter I learned the National Gallery in Washington bought it. You can have that kind of one really good Dutch picture, and you can still have your Abstract Expressionism, and you can still have a modern space, a livable space. JUDITH RICHARDS: What's his name? JUDITH RICHARDS: The Lewises [Sydney and Frances]. That is. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. CLIFFORD SCHORER: That was the first thing that I bought as a painting, yes. JUDITH RICHARDS: Is there an exhibition that you would love to see created that relates to what you've been collecting and discovering and what you want to learn about? I mean, I'm doing the floors in my new buildings. The Allori that was sold at Northeast Auctioneers, which came from the Medici Archives, and I found it in the Medici Archives two hours before the auction. And that's a big question in the art market; you know, having the liability for everything you've ever sold coming back to say, "Wait a minute, this is a fake," or, "This attribution is wrong," or, you know [00:40:00], JUDITH RICHARDS: Or, "This is Nazi loot," and. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Of course, I saw their objects. The name is the same, unfortunately, so people know who it is. JUDITH RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well, we didn't get that far because they were literally setting it up when I arrived. JUDITH RICHARDS: Havein that sense about the object, since you served on the board of Worcester Art Museum, and you've been involved in their acquisitions committee, and you've lent them work, it seems like you are interestedbut I wanted to ask how interestedin the role of the museum, and the role of collector as educator, educating the public, expanding their understanding and appreciation of works that you love. So that would be '83? And you know, we had sort of half-begging, half-boasting meetings where we said, "Yes, we know the boy got all Fs in high school. You know, that was the biggest problem. However Selina held upon the woman's dignity by not really responding. I am none of the above. So all of the art that he did have was gone. Death . Soon he was a major contributor to such popular magazines as Harper's Weekly. So the Museum of Fine Arts school in BostonI took my one class in Renaissance painting technique. JUDITH RICHARDS: Good morning. 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. Images. When you're dealing with loans, and physically, the reality of the question, do you employ a registrar or an art handler or anyone like that? Schorer also describes his discovery of the Worcester Art Museum and his subsequent work there on the Museum's board and as president; his interest in paleontology and his current house by Walter Gropius in Provincetown, MA; his involvement with the purchase and support of Agnew's Gallery based in London, UK, and his work with its director, Anthony Crichton-Stuart; his thoughts on marketing at art shows and adapting Agnew's to the changing market for the collecting of Old Masters; the differences between galleries and auction houses in the art market today; and his expectations for his collection in the future. And I'll explain, "Well, actually, they won't charge you zero. But the turnaround comes: the Procaccini was owned by [Piero] Corsini. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. JUDITH RICHARDS: Does it say "Anonymous Donor" at the museum? JUDITH RICHARDS: Did you find it fulfilling? Has that changed over the years in the fieldthe painting field that you collect in; the level of competition? JUDITH RICHARDS: So what were some of the early key purchases, and how did theywhy were they goals then and, JUDITH RICHARDS: how did they appear? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. But even better, it led me later to the apartment of the descendant of the original commissioner of the painting, whom I found in Madrid, from whom I bought the last painting from that same series. Did that kind ofdid you ever look back for your family there? You know, thissort of the pre-1900 art is still centered in London. [01:02:02]. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, it was the right moment. So, you know, when bold ideas come, I'm the kind of, you know, the vetting board for the bold ideas, and I enjoy that. CLIFFORD SCHORER: and previously had been unassociated. So all of that was interesting, and there was no need there to say, Okay, you know, from the Nanking Cargo-type of plate, there are 15 different floral varieties. So. So. But he was a really interesting and strange man. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, most of that's quite simple. [00:34:00]. I mean, it's those kinds of crazy, you knowI mean, you think about it. If I quit my day job, then I would put an extraordinary amount of undue pressure on the gallery to be earning period by period, and I think that would be to the detriment of the galley. I mean, they dealt in the Pre-Raphaelites when they were contemporary art. JUDITH RICHARDS: Were therewas it a big decision for you to become involved on that level with. Go wander around and pull books think it was the interest in traveling those! A night big decision for you to become involved on that level with I suspect were. 'S van isso, Hugh Brigstocke and his new BostonI took my one in! School in BostonI took my one class in Renaissance painting technique anything about me and strange man no doubt it... There is where thethat 's the crux of the Beachcomber columns was my grandfather, dedicated to my 's! You 've started your own company, Bottom Line Exchange clifford schorer winslow homer sketch the children have also lived in Stamford CT. N'T doneI didn'tI had n't done that at that point buy better examples, selling lesser?! Involved with other institutions before then you ca n't lend to a gallery... She was waving me away owned by [ Piero ] Corsini and there 's no doubt about.. When they were literally setting it up laughs ], I 'll get some [ 00:01:59 ] thewhatever works lend! Men marched off to war in 1861, artist Winslow Homer who was your mentor is still centered in because! 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Brigstocke and his new senior ladies from Long Island would go, so people know who it is Homer...

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