One of the most successful and interesting dealers and collectors of modern times is the American Warner Dailey. Now in his seventies, he came to England in the early 1970s. His most important client was the businessman and philanthropist Malcom Forbes.
Warner has a never ending list of stories about his experiences, the common theme of which is the fact that he has always been entirely immersed in his passion for what and why people collect.
He started as 17-year-old, clearing out the attic of a wealthy family who lived nearby in Upstate New York. They went by the name Pierpont Morgan and his success in selling their cast-offs made them take notice of this precocious teenager. However, it was his canny foresight in appreciating the future collectable attraction of New England quilts that also set him on the road to riches. Touring round in a beaten up old car in the run-up to Halloween, he would offer 50 cents and a new blanket to protect the precious pumpkins from frost to any householder who would hand over their disregarded hand-stitched quilt covering the vegetable plot.
Warner made a small fortune as a result, but he would never have spotted the opportunity if had not been for his early and enduring passion for the art and craft of his fellow countrymen.
