So, yes, I spent a lot of time with history in general, not art history, and was always interested in history. "A loaf of bread is more than 29? $14. And eventually we agreed to part friends. It was a Saint Sebastian. I mean, there were many instances in smaller museums when you just said, "Look, you know, what do you need?" Winslow Homer's "The Gulf Stream" (1899/reworked by 1906) is the centerpiece of a revelatory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He's making these decisions, which you approve of, JUDITH RICHARDS: and then you're going out, CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, yeah. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Mm-hmm. So, you know, it was quite ait was quite a big disparity in age. This is a taste period that is clearly distinct from the prior taste period and, you know, probably will be distinct from the future taste period, because if we don't evolve in that way, we will basically fail. JUDITH RICHARDS: Was it known that he was commissioned by a Spaniard? And today, you know, a good example is, in 1900 the gallery sold 1,001 paintings, and some of them were sold12 in a row to Frick; the next nine to Mellon; the next 12 to Morgan. 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? These are salient works in, you know, in the catalogue, and these are works that the gallery had a historical involvement with in the 19th century. [Laughs. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And Worcester was once a city of, you know, nine millionaires, and those millionaires supported the museum. JUDITH RICHARDS: Yeah. You know, you'd spend two days there every weekend. So it was at that time, the seeds were planted to grow that institution visitation to 200,000, and that's happened. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Johnny Van Haeften. JUDITH RICHARDS: They're based in London? And the museum is making ambitious purchases. So I had readI forgot which painting it was; it was the [Bernardo] Strozzi. And made their own discoveries. CLIFFORD SCHORER: they were also a very closed set. A Roman mosaic. We do TEFAF New York, TEFAF Maastricht, Masterpiece. 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. And they still associate us with the great works of art, with the quality of the art, because Agnew's obviouslyunsurpassed in theI mean, 15 percent of the National Gallery comes from Agnew's. Skinner had a published catalogue that had, you know, a paragraph of text on the better objects. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I mean, I bought aand that's when I started buying paintings. That was completely alone. CLIFFORD SCHORER: You know, there wereI would say. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I'm trying to think if I'd been to Europe by that age. So, I mean, you know, I learned to read a tiny bit. So, you know, the finances of it drove the whole thing. 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. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art. And that was really my main goal. CLIFFORD SCHORER: We do. Did the mission change at all during the years that you were there? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes. And so, you know, obviously this is a man with probably a military education in Germany. And I remember the Museum of Natural History, which haunted me later as an obsession with paleontology. CLIFFORD SCHORER: But anyway, I mean, noI mean, I knew of the name and the connection, but there's never been any. They got the Bacon as the plum to borrow the Rembrandt. And I would go to those. And then I moved to Boston directly. Prep the spring onion by cutting the white part, the middle part and the green part and keep them separately. CLIFFORD SCHORER: in the fine art world, it wasn't there. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So thereyou know, whatthe sort of happy circumstance that might fit into what you're asking is if Iand I can think of one, actually. 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. So, you know, those are very exciting moments. Yeah. And, you know, we were talking yesterday about the Museum of Science. They were phenomenal art collectors. But it was still enough of the addiction dose to make you continue on and on, and on, and on. JUDITH RICHARDS: because most of the material was only sold at auction? So you haveyou know, you haveif you added all of that up and then inflated that with inflation, it probably still wouldn't equal one major sale today, because art inflation is actually much higher than monetary inflation. I wanted to have a three-day ceratopsian symposium, which they did a wonderful job of. You know, I love that. I mean, I think if youwell, I guess, in scale, Colnaghi and Agnew's were the two large players that had the large back of house. Well, I mean, there's a smaller market, so it's something we have to adjust to. [They laugh.] CLIFFORD SCHORER: I think they have more problems now that they have more visitors, because the doors are opening and closing more, and more people means more humidity from the people. And I got to the point whereand again, I'll beI'll stand corrected on this, because I know a collector in Boston who has a very strong opinion on what I'm about to saybut I ended my venture in Chinese export porcelain to my satisfaction, meaning that I couldn't go any further in that particular collecting area, other than to buy more expensive, singular examples of the same thing. Of course. I liked dark colors. JUDITH RICHARDS: There isn't a lot of coverage of Italians, CLIFFORD SCHORER: I read articles in the Burlington, I read articles in, you know, Prospettiva, you know, yes. 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. So I would go up to Montreal, live there for a little while, and come back. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Jim Welu. JUDITH RICHARDS: [Laughs.] They've become broad-market marketing techniques. All of that is gone. JUDITH RICHARDS: Do youwhatat Agnew'sso, in thisspecifically in this period of your life, what do you think are the greatest challenges you are grappling with as a businessman-slash-collector art expert? And I had to take it into various pieces. Do I say, you know, "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, because I know how much this costs, where it came from, blah, blah, blah?" You know, I sort of had a sense of what I needed, and, you know, in terms of someone whose eye I've always esteemed and who has a very even keel and about whom I never heard a bad word. CLIFFORD SCHORER: No. CLIFFORD SCHORER: by the time I was 19, my business was very successful. 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. CLIFFORD SCHORER: I have one piece of armor. Because, you know, there was the idea that 550 objects could just be chucked into auction; you know, you could have a publicized sale and get rid of the company, and, you know, the library could go to the nation, and the archive could go to the National Gallery, and, you know, wash your hands with it. Do you havedo you maintain storage? 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. [00:04:06], CLIFFORD SCHORER: So the entry point at that time was sort of the 10 to $25,000 per picture, and. I mean, they're all Americans, but theythere's at least someI would say a kernel of the character is forged in the German fire. JUDITH RICHARDS: That's, like, a half a million? CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yes, some incrediblethere was an estimate of the marketplace, half a million paintings, and the paleontological specimens of that scale are four, five [laughs], yes. Hasyou've talked about a lot of traveling to discover, to see things that you were going to see, destinations. JUDITH RICHARDS: You're keeping just the gallery in London. She's great. 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. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Sure. [Affirmative.] Or. I'm thinking that we want Agnew's to be scaled for the marketplace, and I don't think that being that large is the correct scale today. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Oh, I've alwaysI don't know. 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. [Affirmative.] [Affirmative.] 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. Then I went back off to high school. I would. [They laugh.] So, yeah. I mean, not because it wasit was cheap. 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. If I saw something in the shop, I would buy it. But in general, we're not [laughs] going to be the maker of manners in that conversation. [00:44:00], CLIFFORD SCHORER: But generally speaking, those didn't show up at most of these estate sales. In a wayin a way, I thought every mistake told some part of the story. JUDITH RICHARDS: I notice that there was a major contribution from, maybe, from your business to the Museum of Science. JUDITH RICHARDS: And most of the people bidding at auction in those days were the wholesalers. CLIFFORD SCHORER: Yeah, with plenty of Q&A. And did art play any role in that? JUDITH RICHARDS: which will then improve the value of your own collection if you still hold it. [01:02:02]. CLIFFORD SCHORER: you know, longer term; I'm excited when an institution finds that something I provide to them fills a lacuna that they would then feelthat they would really miss if I took it away. And Julian's now fully retired, but, yes, I mean, we had a long handover period. 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. He then became a master of sketches and watercolors. CLIFFORD SCHORER: See, I don't want to seem like. CLIFFORD SCHORER: And what they kept domestically and what theywhat the scholars and, you know, the courtiers had domestically was of a different level. The subjects that they were trying to make that were attractive to the audience. CLIFFORD SCHORER: My ownI always maintained paper files, and I'm a computer guy, but I maintain paper files because I've changed technology platforms so many times over the last 25 years that you have to be conscious of that. CLIFFORD SCHORER: and we put a Reynolds. JUDITH RICHARDS: and what it stood for. 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. Hunter Cole, artist. CLIFFORD SCHORER: So it was very, very pleasing to me to have, you know, the Antwerp Museumyou know, the KMSKAbuy, with their own money, what I consider to be a certain van Dyck sketch, you know, from a very importantyou know, one of his pictures in the Prado, one of his preparatory sketches for one of the pictures in the Prado. 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