I don't know that I ever, CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, no, no, other than going there and looking at things. No, no. CLIFFORD SCHORER: when I bought the company that year. [Affirmative.] Let's keep that." At the date of transmission of the programme (26 June 2011), ownership was still the subject of a legal dispute. Antioch. And when Freeport got a little too rough for them, because they were living in a part of town that had gone down quite a bit since they bought in the 1940s. JUDITH RICHARDS: Is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of future aspirations? [00:10:00], JUDITH RICHARDS: Are there any art historians who are thinking about writing. And my grandfather, similarly, was not particularly book-learned but was an incredible engineer. JUDITH RICHARDS: more or less, the interest in earlier painting has declined somewhat, but perhaps not in specifically where you're looking. That are in, you know, the rarefied collectors' hands. I'm not in Boston that often anymore, and I have no art in that house at all. 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. [Laughs.] And that was another thing, too. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So I like the fact that that we're talking more about an accumulation of scholarship, diverse scholarship, that contributes over centuries to an artist's reputation. I'm actually building a building in Massachusetts for that, which. JUDITH RICHARDS: So it sounds like it was a very smooth transition from being a businessman and a collector to getting involved in the business of art through these interactions, these. JUDITH RICHARDS: And you bought it? CLIFFORD SCHORER: No. How can they possibly have a Piero di Cosimo in Worcester? So rather than go back to schoolI wasn't going back to schoolI went and got a programming job at Lifeline Systems, which was a very short, concentrated project. You know, I wouldn't stop. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So that was fine. JUDITH RICHARDS: What was happening with your brother all these years? JUDITH RICHARDS: And have you spoken to other contemporary artists who look back to various aspects of the Old Masters as inspiration? It was justmy grandfather would look at something and understand intrinsically what it needed to do, and what the tolerances needed to be. JUDITH RICHARDS: So you start to spend more time in New York, or that's auction? Solely responsible. So I would basicallythat's whymy base of operations was Montreal. You know, they were a very large shop. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. They've always been that way. The door is closed; we buzz you in. Jon Landau I certainly know more. So it wasn't that I had a great knowledge; it's just that I thought Boston was very beautiful. JUDITH RICHARDS: Yeah, that's so interesting. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So there are those who were present that were important to me, and there's one figure who was not present who was very important to me. So I wasn't at home there, you know, as a person. He's like, "Well, I can't tell you much, but there were some payment issues." I said, "Get on it," you know. Like, you knowand the same thing. CLIFFORD SCHORER: the natural entre into it. CLIFFORD SCHORER: No. Yeah, well, this was an early, early. It was a very protracted process. And I decided to specialize in database languages, which was quite early for those advanced database languages. I mean, it went from, you know, plastic box in Plovdiv to now, you know, altar throne in the Sofia National Museum via the London, you know, RA show on the greatest bronzes. You know, we had a bit of a detour into history because we did the Pre-Raphaelite show, which was a big undertaking for us, you know, kind of a year of the Pre-Raphaelites. I know there were a number of scholars who figured this out, but those source documentssome of them still remained in that apartment in Madrid, so there was fresh scholarship here. Yeah, I mean, that'sthe ones who have open doors will always have my heart. JUDITH RICHARDS: Were there particular acquisitions that you really were excited about that you discovered? So, around that time, I had met a few dealers in the Old Master world, and I did start to either back or buy with the intention of selling, which I hadn't done before. Men So I didn't want to ship it out on a common carrier, so I actually rented a truck and put it in the truck, and I drove 20 hours, with one quick stop for some junk food. [00:28:03], JUDITH RICHARDS: Was your business background also important to them? [00:04:00]. And I know that the story itself is extremely exciting, because to my knowledge, it's the largest commissionI mean, it's 37 four-meter canvases. I think I got out of fourth grade by writing the brief military history of World War II for the entire year, because the teacher couldn't stand me [laughs], so she let me have the year off to write my military history, which I was obsessed with. Absolutely. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And it may get burned, and it may also have little to no attention paid to it, because it may be lost in a sea of other things, and this exciting story we have to tell about your picture will be utterly lost. JUDITH RICHARDS: What was the interest in traveling through those countries? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Gallery exhibition, or that take the gallery in ayou know, in the direction that Anthony wants us to steer. JUDITH RICHARDS: And is there official paperwork that goes along with that? JUDITH RICHARDS: Was that based on a body of work that the galley owns? JUDITH RICHARDS: to the Imperial porcelain? CLIFFORD SCHORER: So the piece was mine, in my collection, and it's named after my grandfather. Do you havedo you maintain storage? And, you know, there's a lot out there that I don't know and that every day we have to learn about. I mean, the boothjust one masterpiece after another. I walked in the office and I said, "Hi. He was a good discoverer. 
JUDITH RICHARDS: Now, I have some questions that sort of look to the future. Rita Albertson at the Worcester Art Museum did a phenomenal restoration. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I consider to be respectable parameters. You know. JUDITH RICHARDS: And how does that manifest itself? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. He's doing all of these really focal things. So the Worcester experience was a very interesting one and actually was perfect, because Worcester is the size that it is. And then I realized, you know, I'd read the name Worcester Art Museum, like, here and there, and I've always logged it in the back of my mind like, Oh, this must be some old collection from New England that, you know, has a few good things. I mean, I'm doing the floors in my new buildings. So it's, to me, those moments. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So they depict the crucifixion scene as a maypole party. 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. You know? 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. JUDITH RICHARDS: Well, you still have conservation in the galleries. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Maybe, maybe so. JUDITH RICHARDS: So you were self-taught? There are a number of hats I had to take off. And the problem was my upbringing hadn't prepared me to be a child. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And I don't mind living in a cardboard box. So you've gotyou can put them side by side. [00:38:00]. JUDITH RICHARDS: Yeah, of course. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, an earthly attribute. Or. So I went to Gillette, and they hadthey were looking for a programmer analysta senior programmer analyst. I said, "I stand corrected." JUDITH RICHARDS: Okay, rabbit-skin glue. JUDITH RICHARDS: We can talk about that. And I said, you know, "Thanks for that." So there came moments when I would be flush with cash because I did something, you know, reasonably successful, and then I would take all that money and go just sink it faster than, you knowprudently, but I would sink it. So I have a whale vertebrae the size of this table. Being self taught, he practised CLIFFORD SCHORER: And then it moves to Amsterdam, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Who had the photographs, because I would never have believed that was an antiquity. But let's just say that there were reactions to what was going on after it happened. JUDITH RICHARDS: Could anything be done? Not just multiple helmets. The mark is often apocryphal. They were contemporary dealers. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And lots of it. There were a few deals out there where I was a partner with the gallery to back the purchase of something a little bit more expensive, and then the gallery would sell that thing, and I would get a percentage of the profit. JUDITH RICHARDS: And the installation decisions? CLIFFORD SCHORER: And some, you know, lifting, but I usually don't let it get to flaking. And again, I knew him, you know, to be fair, I knew him from age 80 to age 99-something. JUDITH RICHARDS: When you're in New York, for example, what are the specific places you most love to go to look at art? Yeah. The National Gallery of Art, which houses Home, Sweet Home, has referred to Homers independence from artistic conventions.Indeed, Homers resistance to influence from foreign artists and movements is another key to the scholarly verdict of his Americanness. I don't want to say thatI don't want to take anything away from the scholars who do serious scholarship, because what I'm doing is really applying an acuity of eye to a question, and that's a very, very tiny aspect. Just collecting as a general habit. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, living on my own. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I had access to, you know, a virtual warehouse full of them. He'syou know, he sponsors museum events; he sponsors exhibitions. It didn't matter to me at all. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, yeah. And now I think there's a very good process in place. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, I have. And now, it's a city of, you know, 100,000 Ph.D.s, who all have good income, but they don't support institutions. And, you know, when the euro was new. And I think I needed more of a therapist than a decorator. I think I was 20 or 21. We had a Bill Viola exhibition of his martyrdom series [Martyrs: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, 2014] that he made for St. Paul's, CLIFFORD SCHORER: That was at TEFAF, the first time, CLIFFORD SCHORER: first TEFAF in Maastricht. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Still living in Boston, yeah. Yeah. 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. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I know that Colnaghi has managed to navigate those waters for the last 60-odd years since the originalyou knowwell, even more than 60 for thesince the original founders were out of the picture. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And he's a very entertaining historian. "A loaf of bread is more than 29? 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. She's great. So [00:48:00], JUDITH RICHARDS: But you didn't havethat were well-managed, and you didn't have to, CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well-managed, I have two dinners per year with the management team and. The book isso, Hugh Brigstocke and his new. I mean, Iwell, maybe a little more. 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. [00:08:00]. They didn't actually want you in there. But, yeah, I had a programming job there. And so, yeah, I mean, there were a number of things, a number of hats that I had to shed to sort of, I think, stay within what. And Cliff, my father, is the same name as myself, as is my grandfather. I mean, in a way, there isthere is still this desire to be involved in the business, to be building things, to be working on projects. JUDITH RICHARDS: So while thesewe're talking about these early collecting experiences. But it was still enough of the addiction dose to make you continue on and on, and on, and on. CLIFFORD SCHORER: It's a very different game. I would just go up and talk to them, and we would talk for half an hour, and I'd walk away. WebCLIFFORD 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 CLIFFORD SCHORER: It's been a very long-term loan. Yeah. JUDITH RICHARDS: When you werewhen you were talking about Amsterdam and Antwerp, I was thinking about the fact that your mother was originally of Dutch. And I saw Daniele Crespi as an artist who is equally competent but died so young that he never really established his name. I eventually liquidated Best Products. JUDITH RICHARDS: So the, in the '90s, you were beginning your studying, and you're focused on these key areas of Italian, CLIFFORD SCHORER: Again, it's a world of solitude, though; you talk about studying. This is incredible." CLIFFORD SCHORER: Hands on. And commercially, it was a triumph because, of course, the Chinese were not in the market yet. I have the Coronation Halberd of the Archduke Albrecht, and it's in the museum at Worcester [laughs], and, no. 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. That'syou know, those are all possibilities. You know, fill in the blank; provenance issues, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: It's a loan, yeah, yeah. The shareholders did very well by the real estate. It was, you know, it was Rome. [Laughs. Well, that's because it's a posthumous portrait. JUDITH RICHARDS: You don't have the 110-foot specimen? 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. So there were, you know, four or five sales a year. And being a sort of mariner and obsessed with the mariners of, you know, the 19th century. And that's generallyyou know, you build upon the scholars of the past, and the next scholar may say no. So I still, to this dayI mean, I'm building two buildings as we speak, and I'm running back and forth doing concrete pours, because I love that. Victor Building I believe it's still the biggest. It's King Seuthes III. CLIFFORD SCHORER: All of them. Had you started going to museums there? CLIFFORD SCHORER: You don't often find neglected objects, but luckily, this one was neglected because it was so recently found, and now it's sort of risen to the top of the pile immediately. JUDITH RICHARDS: Is this something that youthat the Worcester Art Museum had to deal with, or have they always had good-quality climate control? One is an Adoration of the Magi, and one is The Taking of Christ, so I have sort of the beginning of the story and the end of the story [laughs], which I'm very excited about. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Well, the big London galleries. So if Anthony says, you know, "We've got this great work"if he came to me tomorrow and said, "I've got this masterpiece by Rubens that we can buy," it would break my heart, but I would understand that, you know, despite that being a lifelong goal is to have that picture, I understand that that's going to have to be offered through the gallery, and that I'm going to have to be hands-off, which is why it's best just to simply pause in the collecting. I mean, there was a moment in each place in my head where I knew what was happening in those places because of history. Olive subsequently married John (Jack) Arbuthnot who wrote some of the Beachcomber columns. CLIFFORD SCHORER: We brought back together some pictures that hadn't been together since the 1870s. WebClifford Schorer says the painting was used as security for a loan and that he is now entitled to it, the Blake family having failed to make a claim in a US court. Other kinds of pitfalls that you might, CLIFFORD SCHORER: All of the above. Any object there that might have a mark. You know, it's ait's a story of ruination. CLIFFORD SCHORER: No, no, so I had minor collecting in that area, JUDITH RICHARDS: While you were collecting. Telefonnummer think multifamily coaching cost. The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Clifford Schorer on June 6 and 7, 2018. [00:10:02], JUDITH RICHARDS: When you started out in this field, did you have a general sense of where you wanted to go? JUDITH RICHARDS: Have you ever tried to, or wanted to, learn how to do any of the kinds of ceramic work or painting or whatever yourself to see what's entailed? I would say George Abrams is the kind of collector that, you know, is, you know, someoneI spent, I don't know, nine hours with him on Sunday. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You have to rein me in when I go off on tangents. JUDITH RICHARDS: So you talked about what's important and what was significant art historically. JUDITH RICHARDS: And you talked about enjoying lending. New York? It's the same problem. So, you know, those are very exciting moments. JUDITH RICHARDS: Probably there's a few things that happened before that, we haven't touched on. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And I know, for example, Ordovas Gallery was able to do a Rembrandt and Francis Bacon show, and there I think the motivation was they got the Bacon. The 19th century ) Arbuthnot who wrote some of the programme ( 26 June 2011 ), was... 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