So, you know, we met, we discussed it, and it was far more complex than I thought it would be. Relatives. Let's see. And why not? I'm actually building a building in Massachusetts for that, which. So they had had merger discussions in the '70s to merge the institutions, and the Higgins finally ran out of runway. I don't know exactly how long, but he lived a long time. 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. So. I went from, you know, the Gustave Moreau museum to theor well, pre-d'Orsay, right? That [01:00:00]. 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. I rememberI remember in those days the things that I brought on Pan Amoh, my God. 750 9th Street, NWVictor Building, Suite 2200 I'll look it up afterwards. He was born and raised in the Cambridge area, Boston, MA, and the first work he did in the field of art, was working as a print maker, in Boston, as well as in New York, which he eventually made his home in 1859. . But this is correct. So my businesses create a lot of physical assets. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, no. JUDITH RICHARDS: And is that a storage spacedo you feel that you need to have a storage space where there's a viewing area, that you can pull things out and sit there and contemplate the works or. I mean, you readwith this contemporary art market soaring. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. So I think back then it was much more about a buying strategy, and, you know, I think now I would say, Be very cautious and very slow, because now the market is created to separate you from your money and, JUDITH RICHARDS: And this applies to specifically Italian Baroque or any of the areas you've, CLIFFORD SCHORER: generally speaking, what's happened is the auction market, which used to be a wholesaler's market, has become a mass market, and as such, the marketing techniques employed have become mass-market marketing techniques. And he said, "Do you know what you bought?" Of the blue-and-white, and the highly decorated, sort of the Qing period stuff, that's all gone. ], JUDITH RICHARDS: That's okay. They will charge the buyer 20 to 25 percent." They werethey wereI mean, in France, of course. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, why does this woman look like a skeleton? JUDITH RICHARDS: And the Museum of Fine Arts? JUDITH RICHARDS: late teens. So I've always thought of myself as an autodidact. How can they possibly have a Piero di Cosimo in Worcester? 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. Those are the ones where you go three days withof everyone presenting their papers, and then you have a Q&A at the end, and you can't shut people up because they're soyou know, they're fuming over what they've watched for three days. And since I'm, you know. CLIFFORD SCHORER: My first car was my grandfather's van. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So, yes. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, in one case they were actually in the same apartment where the family had sold them from years before. 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. Does it happen that a painting and a drawing will happen to hit the market at the same time? I've got some French examples. 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. I don't know if there are people, collectors, that you have relationships that you want to mention someone, or competitors. This exhibition reconsiders Homer's work through the lens of conflict, a theme that crosses his prolific career. Birth date: 9 August, 1917, Thursday. Winslow Homer (1836 - 1910) was a remarkable American painter who mastered several mediums, including oils and watercolors. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Spent one year there. JUDITH RICHARDS: and some Flemish Baroque, too. Have youyou mentioned thea committee at the MFA in Boston. "Oh, okay, thisall this 19th-century porcelain. [00:14:00], So the little paintings on my Chinese export porcelain, the engravings on the Columbus series of stamps, theyou know, all of those things, all of those, you know, progressing all the way up to, you know, big, narrative, allegorical paintings of the Baroque: those are all this kind of marriage of conception and highly skilled craft. So I joined that, which was a lot of fun. [00:54:00]. Having old art in New England is not the easiest thing, because of humidity control, which is almost impossible. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Not a registrar. And I remember coming around the corner and seeing something so staggeringly, unbelievably great that I couldn't believe it. 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. So back then, you know, I did a lot of assembly code, and COBOL, and MDBS. 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. But my desire to live in the middle of nowherethis was in Meriden, New Hampshire, which was literally the middle of nowherewith 400 other. And I have it at home to remind myself of what an absolutely abysmal painter I am and to really, you know, bring homeyou know, I always think I can put myI can do anything I put my head to. JUDITH RICHARDS: You have Pre-Raphaelite paintings? Without having someone who could actually be front and center, running the business, I would not have purchased the company. So it's very exciting. [00:42:00], CLIFFORD SCHORER: we closed, yeah, yeah. 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. JUDITH RICHARDS: Was there a particular person who was your mentor? And also, my grandparents wanted me to be a child. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I was a willful and independent child. JUDITH RICHARDS: You were traveling a lot in the '80s. You mentioned that. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah. You know, I never thought of it as a practical way to improve the quality of the collection until recently, like until the last 10 years. So in other words . Without synthetic fertilizers, it's impossible to feed the human race. 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. [00:22:01], CLIFFORD SCHORER: I mean, that'syou know, as a six-year-old or something, I remember that. All of that is gone. They were very, very strong. And Anna especially, too, on the aesthetic, of creating a new aesthetic that people do not any longer associate with the old aesthetic. And Cliff, my father, is the same name as myself, as is my grandfather. 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. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I was interested in history primarily, if I had my druthers. [Affirmative.] This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. JUDITH RICHARDS: There are new warehouses all the time, I think, going up, and there's that new one in Long Island City. So, it's the, CLIFFORD SCHORER: it's the hunt, the pursuit, the discovery, the investigation, the scholarship, the writing. I mean, there's so many things in New York. I collect Dutch still lifes; I collect," you know, fill in the blank. So I resigned from the board at the Worcester Art Museum, because I found that that could be a direct conflict of interest. You know, that's, CLIFFORD SCHORER: Being a good steward, yeah. In other words, they were things that wouldn't have been brought to me, and certainly wouldn't have been brought to me at the wholesale level, so to speak, and I couldn't have bought them by myself because of the dealer profit involved. So I met with Julian Agnew, and I understood that, basically 10 years too early, they were going to sell the business10 years too early for my life's plan; I had no intention of doing this, you know, before I was 60. They were able to sell the parts of the collection that were not museum-worthy, but they raised a tremendous amount of money. You know? Not a lot of pieces, because they were much more expensive. [00:42:05]. JUDITH RICHARDS: So you talked about what's important and what was significant art historically. JUDITH RICHARDS: Yes. But, I mean, I can tell, you know, when yet another picture arises from a certain quarter, what we're dealing with. Winslow Homer. CLIFFORD SCHORER: For theyou know, luckily, we have the sands of time to wear away the lesser works from the, you know, from the museum-quality question of whether an Old Master belongs in a museum. JUDITH RICHARDS: But you started out displaying these 300? Contact Reference Services for more information. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I get my screw gun and I open whatever I want to open whenever I want to look at it, so, yes. I'm not in Boston that often anymore, and I have no art in that house at all. Or not. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, yeah. JUDITH RICHARDS: No, no, no, this is very important, JUDITH RICHARDS: what you were talking about. JUDITH RICHARDS: And most of the people bidding at auction in those days were the wholesalers. JUDITH RICHARDS: Thinking of boyhood passions, you talked about war, and did you ever want to collect armor? And, you know, you can do that, and if it's done aesthetically well, you can show somebody that, you know, you can still have the quality and think about what a bargain it is. You know, sure, I mean, I could go down a list of 200 people that I've wandered in on and started spouting nonsense, and they tolerate my nonsense, and then they actually engage in a conversation with me. So, yeah. 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? I'm trying to think what other fairs we've done. So it was an interesting thing. 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