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Julian Radcliffe

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Julian Radcliffe
BornAugust 1948 (age 76)
NationalityBritish
EducationEton
Alma materNew College, Oxford
OccupationBusinessman
Known forFounder, chairman and majority shareholder, Art Loss Register

Julian Guy Yonge Radcliffe OBE QVRM (born August 1948) is a British businessman, and the founder and chairman of the Art Loss Register (ALR).

Early life

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He was educated at Eton, followed by New College, Oxford, from where he has a degree in politics and economics.[1][2]

Career

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In 1970, Radcliffe joined Hogg Robinson, as a Lloyd's of London insurance broker.[2] He claims that in 1975, he was one of the co-founders of Control Risks, then a Hogg Robinson subsidiary, with Timothy Royle, an ex-Army officer.[2][3] However, he does not appear in any company literature regarding the founding process and was likely just an early minority shareholder.[4] In 1990, he founded the Art Loss Register. ("ALR") [2]

Radcliffe is the majority shareholder in the Art Loss Register, with auction houses Sotheby's (a/k/a Oatshare Ltd.) owning about 11%, Christie's about 3%.[5] In 1991, The International Foundation for Art Research, based in New York City, NY (USA) helped create the Art Loss Register (ALR) as a commercial enterprise to expand and market the database. IFAR managed ALR's U.S. operations through 1997. In 1998 the ALR assumed full responsibility for the IFAR database although IFAR retains ownership[6]

In 2008, Radcliffe was heavily criticised for attempting to profit from Nazi-looted art claims after signing agreements with holocaust victims to provide services without charge.[7] On 20 September 2013 The New York Times reported that The Art Loss Register has drawn criticism from those who say its hardball tactics push ethical, and sometimes legal, boundaries.[8]

In 2013, Radcliffe said that the ALR has lost money for ten years, only surviving thanks to his own cash injections.[9] In 2014, The Times called him a "controversial figure".[1] The Times has reported that ALR has paid informers and underworld figures for information, which some in law enforcement believe could encourage theft.[10] In 2013, former LA Times reporter Jason Felch uncovered that Julian Radcliffe and the Art Loss Register issued certificates of clearance for looted objects for $100.00 each with no provenance to Subhash Kapoor and his gallery, Art of the Past. These certificates allowed the looted objects to trade in the marketplace despite having been stolen from Indian temples.[11] In 2017, the Art Loss Register was again criticised for issuing certificates of clearance for looted objects.[12]

In 2014, Radcliffe admitted publicly that he has paid money to criminals and that some of the funds paid went to people directly connected to thefts of stolen art.[13] Radcliffe has stated that the ALR has lost money for six years, only surviving thanks to his own cash injections.[14][15] In an article published by the Times, Parisian police officer Thomas Erhardy stated that "Radcliffe ruins everything" commenting on his interference with police investigations into stolen art.[16]

In 2015, Radcliffe's Register was found to have been in the middle of several art related disputes. Their certificates of clearance were used by looters, possessors of stolen artworks, and Nazi-looted works that appeared for sale at TEFAF. The ALR issued clearance certificates for a Nazi looted El Greco and then denied that they knew about the work. An ALR spokesman corrected his statements to the press when confronted with this issue.[17]

As of 2016, the Art Loss Register claims to be the world's largest private database of lost and stolen art, with more than 300,000 items.[18]

The database has over 700,000 entries in 2022.

Honours

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Radcliffe was awarded an OBE in 1999 and the QVRM in 2004[2] for activities unrelated to his work at the Art Loss Register. Radcliffe refers to himself as "Col. Radcliffe" which refers to his stint in the volunteer reserve Territorial Army.[19]

Personal life

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Radcliffe lives in Battersea, London,[20][21] and is the owner of Lower Stanway Farm near to Much Wenlock.[22] By 1840, Lower Stanway had become part of Sir Henry William Bayntun's Rushbury estate, and by 1909 the 293-acre property was in the ownership of the Webster family, who had previously been tenant farmers on the same land. Later it passed by marriage to Thomas Marsden, and the Marsden family owned it until 1973, when the Radcliffe family bought the farm. Lower Stanway itself is a large 19th-century brick house.[23]

Radcliffe's favourite painting is A Cornfield, 1815, by Peter De Wint, in the collection of the V&A, London.[24]

References

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  1. ^ a b Mostrous, Alexi. "The murky world of the art detective – The Times".
  2. ^ a b c d e "Julian Radcliffe – Art Business Conference".
  3. ^ Wachman, Richard (14 March 2010). "Iraq security firm joins bidding for Wall Street's favourite detective agency". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  4. ^ "Control Risks Group - SourceWatch". www.sourcewatch.org. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  5. ^ [1] Companies House Gov.UK
  6. ^ "About IFAR".
  7. ^ "Prof ensnared in case of Pissarro looted by Nazis". Los Angeles Times. 15 April 2008. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  8. ^ Taylor, Kate (20 September 2013). "Tracking Stolen Art For Profit and Blurring a Few Lines". The New York Times.
  9. ^ "Optical Due Diligence: Art Loss Register Claims To Vet Ancient Art. Does it?". Chasing Aphrodite. August 2013. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  10. ^ Flynn, Tom (9 August 2014). "tomflynn: "Radcliffe ruins everything." Art Loss Register chairman under scrutiny for passing money to Balkan gangsters". Tom-flynn.blogspot.it. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
  11. ^ "Scoop: New Evidence Of Stolen Idols at the National Gallery of Australia". Chasing Aphrodite. 4 June 2013. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  12. ^ "Allegedly looted antiquities on sale at London Frieze Masters art fair". 22 October 2017.
  13. ^ Alexi Mostrous. "The murky world of the art detective". The Times & The Sunday Times. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  14. ^ Taylor, Kate; Manly, Lorne (20 September 2013). "Tracking Stolen Art, for Profit, and Blurring a Few Lines". New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  15. ^ Gerlis, Melanie (26 January 2016). "Art Loss Register faces competition complaint from Art Recovery Group". The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on 28 February 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  16. ^ ""Radcliffe ruins everything." Art Loss Register chairman under scrutiny for passing money to Balkan gangsters". tom-flynn.blogspot.it. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  17. ^ "Stolen Art, Why no one can say for sure". Archived from the original on 21 April 2017.
  18. ^ John Kerr (9 March 2016). The Securitization and Policing of Art Theft: The Case of London. Routledge. pp. 99–101. ISBN 978-1-317-01648-9. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  19. ^ "RESERVE FORCES GROUP LAUNCHED". Julian Brazier. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  20. ^ "International Art and Antique Loss Register Limited - Officers". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  21. ^ "Who's Afraid of Julian Radcliffe?".
  22. ^ "National Trust farming tenancy project".
  23. ^ "Rushbury – British History Online".
  24. ^ "My favourite painting: Julian Radcliffe – Country Life". 3 June 2016.
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