At Progressive’s offices in Mayfield Village, Ohio, a walk down the stairs is a little more exciting than at most companies. The main stairwell is draped with candles, steel, wire, silk flowers and ribbons all dripped in wax. The installation, by artist Petah Coyne, gives the space the feel of a “haunted ballroom,” says Kristin Rogers, art education and communications manager for the Progressive Collection.
The auto insurance giant boasts one of the most extensive contemporary art collections in the corporate world, and it’s more than just decoration: the company says it uses the art to encourage its employees to think creatively.
Hundreds if not thousands of companies collect art—but only a few make an art of collecting.
Financial return is not the aim. “Art is a risky investment,” says Shirley Reiff Howarth, editor of the International Directory of Corporate Art, who points to the notion that there must be some financial payoff as one of the great myths that surround corporate art.
Some corporate collections are little more than furnishing, others are historical. The companies on our list of the top corporate art collections, however, fall under a third category of corporations that do more than just possess work. Nick Orchard, head of Corporate Collections at Christie’s Europe, calls this “proactive collecting.” UBS and Deutsche Bank, for example, have made art central to their corporate identities. Bank of America uses art to connect with the public.
To come up with our list of the best corporate art collections, we spoke to a range of writers, art advisers and curators. Their standard: the best collections use art to improve lives and to educate. In addition to expert interviews, we considered activity and buzz around the collection. This means owning fifty Picassos is not enough if they have been sitting in storage for a decade.
Some of the collections are managed by a staff of curators and others rely on outside advisers. Some are largely open the public and others are only accessible to employees. Collections that have been sold or donated to museums are not included and the corporation must currently maintain the collection to be considered for this list. None of the corporations we spoke with would disclose the value of their collection for this story.
One of the companies featured on our list is UBS, which owns 35,000 pieces of modern and contemporary art. The Swiss bank mainly acquires works by relatively unknown (aka less expensive) emerging and mid-career artists. UBS’ philosophy is “to be supporting living artists at integral stages of their career,” says Jacqueline Lewis, the bank’s curator for the Americas.
The bank has loaned or gifted some of its art to major museums like MOMA, but much of the collection is displayed in employee only areas. Works are rotated among UBS location every year or two. Lewis says she often gets frustrated calls from bank employees when a work they’ve grown attached to is moved.
