Few can claim having helped usher a team to a World Series baseball championship while also building a world-class art collection like Jeffrey Loria, the entrepreneur, author, art dealer, and former owner of the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals) and Miami Marlins baseball teams.
Loria first found major success in the art world at the tender age of 24 when he established his own private art dealing business, Jeffrey H. Loria & Co., Inc., which specializes in important works by 20th-century masters. Since then, he has embarked on a multifaceted career, which he outlines in his new book, From the Front Row: Reflections of a Major League Baseball Owner and Modern Art Dealer.
“I’ve always believed in doing things quietly,” Loria told Artsy. “I don’t seek attention. I kind of go about my life and do what I want to do in meeting people and meeting the artists and in my business, both in the art world [and] in the baseball world.”
Loria grew up in New York, and credits his mother for sparking his passion for art. “I must have gotten it from my mother, who used to want to go to the museums, and from an early age used to take me along. And I would, of course, probably ask questions,” he recalled. Loria’s mother was a teacher in the New York City public school system who was “very interested in people, which is why, I guess, I got interested in the people that I wanted to meet in Europe and elsewhere, whether it was Henry Moore or Max Ernst.”
His interest grew more considerable while Loria was a student at Yale, where he studied art history under the renowned historian Vincent Scully. In his junior year, he had no desire to go to Fort Lauderdale for spring vacation like his peers and instead went to London to meet Moore. “I was probably the youngest person ever to walk into his studio and meet him and create a wonderful friendship that lasted 25 years,” Loria said. These experiences would prove vital for his career as an art dealer. It was at Yale where a fellow classmate asked him for advice on what art to purchase with the proceeds from the sale of his family’s dairy farm. The two would later go to New York on a buying trip that would prove formative to Loria.
“The trip exposed me for the first time to the monetary side of art and to the workings of auction houses, a frenzied landscape even back then,” Loria recalled in his book. “My eyes were opened to a world of financial options that I had never thought possible. Art history degrees generally led to an occupation as an art historian, professor, lecturer, or author. I now saw that perhaps I could turn my education into something financially exciting.”
After completing his education, Loria worked as an assistant buyer for a newly established art buying program at Sears, the department store. He soon found himself traveling across the country to buy works such as prints by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Rembrandt, and even commissioned work by Salvador Dalí. In 1965, he established Jeffrey H. Loria & Co., Inc., and became a private art dealer. “My father backed my efforts with a $2,000 loan,” he recalled in the book. “That seed money was all I needed.”
For Loria, the impact of spending time with artists in their studios cannot be overstated. Loria spent time in the studios of artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Giacomo Manzù. “Being close to these [artists] meant that I was learning all the time,” Loria told Artsy. “You can read what you want to read. But when you are in their workshop and in their rooms and in their studios, you see things that are different. How did you come to this conclusion? Why are you doing this? And none of them ever minded my asking questions.”
The ability to interact directly with artists also allowed Loria to witness artists and their raw talent beyond their public personas. Dalí was a case in point. “He had his eccentricities, but he always kept his eye focused on his work,” Loria said. “He was one of the most brilliant artists I ever knew. I once saw him make a drawing. He put the paper down on a table and he put a pencil in his hand and he started drawing. He never lifted the pencil off the paper. You could see [the drawing] coming right out of his mind, out of his head and his thinking process. And I watched his eyes and his hands at the same time and you couldn’t believe how beautiful a drawing he could make.”
With both art collecting and his career in general, Loria highlights the importance of having passion and trusting in one’s gut. “You have to have a sense and a feeling, and you have to trust it,” he said. “You have to always stay fresh and be relevant, get yourself out there just enough, but always with a strong level of humility. Once you’re greedy, you’re finished.”
Loria took a short pause before adding, “You also have to not be afraid to take risks. People who don’t take risks don’t always succeed. I never had a fear of failure. That was never an option for me.”
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/O3ZYFmp
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