Corporate Art Collections

This new volume in the series of Handbooks in International Art Business published in association with Sotheby's Institute of Art offers a timely guide to corporate collecting, examining the history, nature and importance of corporate collecting and the different reasons for starting and maintaining corporate collections, including investment, cultural cache, and asset diversification.

Why do institutions take the plunge into an asset class that is usually very far from their core businesses? The authors categorise modern corporate art collections into four broad categories. First, there is the traditional corporate collection, where works are purchased directly from galleries or artists to enhance the office environments. Many of the collections that fall into this category - largely banks or financial-service organisations - have some of the best-quality works of any corporately held collection. The second category includes those collections that seek to say something about the company's corporate identity: these collections have become very involved with how the company would like to project itself. The third category is philanthropic collections: those that structure their collection strategy around a charitable remit. And finally the all-rounders: those companies whose work with the arts permeates their identity, office environment, social outreach and sponsorship. Based on interviews with the curators, consultants and investors who run such collections, and more extended case studies of important collections worldwide, the book concludes with an examination of when corporate collecting becomes a liability and the market-impact of deaccessioning, looking ahead to the future of corporate collecting.