Raoh
Friedel Schorr (May 2, 1901 - June 8, 1991) was a highly successful Swiss
sculptor, an animalier and decorative artist (his Bengal Tiger is in the Tate)Partner Clem Haizelden
Queer Places:
Bolton Studios, 17B Gilston Rd, Kensington, London SW10 9SJ, UK
19 Mulberry Walk, Chelsea, London SW3, UK
Raoh
Friedel Schorr (May 2, 1901 - June 8, 1991) was a highly successful Swiss
sculptor, an animalier and decorative artist (his Bengal Tiger is in the Tate)
Arthur Jeffress’ friend, lesbian art dealer Erica Brausen had a marriage of convenience to artist Clem Haizelden, the lover of her landlord at Bolton Studios, Raoh Schorr. Clem Haizelden, lost touch with his entire family after 1951, his little sister, an artist herself, married the sculptor William Tucker. Clem and Erica continued to see each other in London and they never divorced. Brausen begun her lifelong affair with Catharina “Toto” Koopman.
Schorr studied art in Basel, Geneva and then Paris, where he had a studio for thirteen years and modelled many of his bronze animalier sculptures after creatures in the zoo. He settled in England in 1936, the same time as Erica Brausen, exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1937 onwards and was a very successful and wealthy designer of posters, fabrics, interior decoration, exhibitions and sculpture for film, theatre and shop windows displays. In the 1960s, Schorr began to model groups of animals for Worcester Royal Porcelain and Royal Doulton; a bronze Bengal Tiger is in the Tate, purchased by the director James Bolivar Manson, whose portrait Schorr painted. Manson was a fellow artist and fan of Schorr and, after leaving both his wife and the Tate, lived nearby in Carlyle Studios until his death in 1945. Another Schorr enthusiast was the profoundly eccentric Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar, Naps Alington's brother-in-law, who, as a notable and senior member of gay circles, had been at Arthur Jeffress's Red and White Party. He went on to combine a role as a chamberlain to Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI with that of an accomplished occultist, and was called by Aleister Crowley the Adept of Adepts.
Schorr's artistic production was carried out at Bolton Studios where Erica Brausen lived for nearly twenty years. These twenty-seven hidden-away studios in the area known as Little Chelsea in Kensington were built between 1885 and 1890 then re-modelled in 1934 when their communal sanitary arrangements were replaced by less bohemian facilities in each studio and resident staff provided cooking and cleaning. Many studios fell vacant during World War II or were destroyed but Brausen was living in number 26 by 1947, possibly from as early as 1943. Schorr's sister Clara Schorr worked with him and lived with her partner Elissa Huddleston at number 6, while he used numbers 3 and 5 as ateliers. Schorr and Brausen had probably met in Paris and Schorr introduced his new London neighbour Brausen to his young friend Clem Haizelden.
Raoh Schorr (Swiss, 1901-1991)
Blue male nude
Raoh Schorr
Reh
Bronze, greenish patina
Sculpture
14 cm
Schorr's own home was in the elegant Chelsea street of Mulberry Walk, where Joe Carstairs and Ruth Baldwin had lived during the Elvira Barney trial. Clem lived there with Schorr in 1946/7, working alongside him at Bolton Studios after his wartime service.
Clem was the love of Schorr's life but in March 1947 Clem left England behind and travelled to Ontario then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland. In 1951, Clem travelled from New York back to London to say goodbye to one of his sisters before she emigrated to New Zealand. He never saw his family again. He stayed with Schorr on this short trip but was home in New York by Christmas, where his family believed him to be running an hotel.
Clem made an annual visit to London to celebrate Schorr's birthday and returned with ceramics and watercolours from the Schorr studio to sell to American clients. Schorr occasionally travelled over to New York as late as the 1980s to help Clem and Kennedy when they had major commissions to deliver and the three of them took regular holidays together in the Caribbean. They also often holidayed together with Schorr's sister and her family in Switzerland at their hotel on the shores of Lake Lucerne, and the Swiss nieces remained close to Clem and called him Uncle.
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