When the chief executive of AXA Insurance decided in 1995 to start a corporate art collection, he asked the Dublin artist Bernadette Madden to organise it. Her starting budget was IR£5,000 a year, a modest amount, but she was determined to show that an art collection could be built up gradually while spending very little money.

Madden sourced works directly from artists, or from their galleries – never from auction houses. She went to graduate shows, a great place to get work by a star of the future at a modest price.

A few years later AXA considered moving to a bigger building, so Madden’s budget was increased to IR£20,000 a year. Although the move never happened, she was allowed to keep the budget.

“AXA was very supportive,” Madden recalls. “They let me buy what I wanted, and never questioned anything. The best thing was that they weren’t looking for art as investment. They understood my way of buying – that helping artists at the early stages of their careers would make a big difference.”

Eventually, though, AXA decided to axe their art collection, and some of it was sold in an online auction by deVeres in September 2018. There were works by Mick O’Dea, Brian Maguire, Martin Gale, and Jane O’Malley, and some of the prices were in the low hundreds. 

Dispersal and disposal has been the fate of several Irish corporate collections. Once a status symbol, adorning boardrooms and chief executives’ offices, they fell out of favour after the financial crash in 2008, and there were many high-profile sales in the ensuing years. But some companies never stopped collecting, and others are now re-engaging with art – not to show off but rather to support Irish artists, and improve the look and ambience of their offices.

“It’s an area of growth again – not in terms of amassing collections, but more about demonstrating and modelling who a company is, what their values are, and how they engage their employees,” confirms Louise O’Reilly, chief executive of Business to Arts, whose mission is to help develop creative partnerships between the corporate and the cultural sectors. “Staff retention issues are important at the moment, and companies have to demonstrate authenticity to employees, and model the behaviour they are talking about. Art has a role to play in terms of companies demonstrating that.”

Modest sales

The sales of some corporate collections raised surprisingly modest amounts. The most disappointing was that of Anglo Irish Bank. While it cost the Irish taxpayer billions, the bad bank’s art raised just €281,000 when it went under the hammer at Adam’s, on the instructions of a liquidator, in 2013. The most expensive lot was a painting by Stephen McKenna, which went for €17,000.

Some art was sold at the behest of Nama, including a collection owned by developer Noel Smyth. The agency took possession of 14 artworks owned by Derek Quinlan, worth more than €2m, and after donating John Lavery’s “Return from Market” to the National Gallery of Ireland, and selling them a Jack B Yeats for €180,000, it disposed of the rest at Christie’s. The top price paid was for Andy Warhol’s “Dollar Sign”, which fetched €610,000 at a sale in New York, while another appropriately named work, Yeats’ “Man Doing Accounts”, was sold in London for £183,650.

Nama also approved the sale by Bonhams of 10 artworks owned by developer David Arnold, a former business associate of Quinlan. The agency allowed Arnold to sell his collection independently, provided it was on the open market. Some of the prices realised were far lower than what Arnold originally spent. For example, in May 2006 he paid €241,500 including fees for “The Little Harvest, Mayo” by Norah McGuinness, even though the auctioneer’s top estimate was €35,000. It got €83,800 at Bonhams. Similarly, he bought “Muriel” by Colin Middleton for €170,000 in 2005, and Bonhams got £58,000.

This week the agency said: “The sale of artworks by Nama debtors and receivers generated approximately €3.1 million in proceeds. Owing to debtor confidentiality constraints, Nama cannot provide specific details regarding the artworks sold.”

Danske Bank, a Danish lender, put its antique silver on the market in 2016 as it wound down its business in Ireland. The collection had been inherited when Danske took over National Irish Bank. Iona Technologies, the Irish software company, once had an enviable collection, including works by the Limerick artist John Shinnors. But after its takeover by Progress Software in 2008, the artworks disappeared into storage and were eventually sold off piecemeal.

Some sales of corporate art arose from the modern transformation of offices, with glass walls and open-plan designs leaving fewer places where paintings could be hung. This was one of the reasons  for the sale of some of UTV’s collection at Adam’s in 2017. The station was moving to new offices in Belfast, which had less space, so 100 paintings and sculptures were sold off.

The “picture unfriendly” nature of its new offices in Talbot Street was also cited by Independent News & Media when it sold off art in 2012. The collection, put together by Vincent Ferguson, included nine works by Louis le Brocquy, and his “Procession with Lilies” sold for a respectable €320,000 at Adam’s.

When Bank of Ireland moved to sell some of its art in 2010, however, it caused a political row. Artists such as Robert Ballagh and the late Pauline Bewick complained about the dispersal of such an important collection, and Mary Hanafin, the then arts minister, also registered her unhappiness. A sale only proceeded after the bank donated 66 of its finest pieces to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Some €1.5 million was raised at an auction in Adam’s for what was supposed to be the first tranche of works, but nothing further was ever sold.

Bank of Ireland told The Currency: “Today we retain a smaller collection and focus our support for the arts through the Bank of Ireland Begin Together Arts Fund, which has allocated €1 million to artists and arts projects in communities across the island of Ireland.”

The Electricity Supply Board sold off nearly half its collection in 2014, including paintings by Norah McGuinness and Charlie Tyrell. The semi-state said at the time that it had decided to auction off any artworks that did not relate to “ESB themes”.

The company now exemplifies the new way of collecting. “ESB has continued to support the arts but in recent years our focus has shifted from traditional acquisition of physical pieces towards initiatives such as the ESB Brighter Future Arts Fund, delivered in partnership with Business to Arts,” it said.

“The fund has supported artists working with organisations on creative arts projects to engage their communities in a positive way around climate change, sustainability, and the energy transition on the path to a net zero future.”

Staying in the market

Among the companies which continued collecting through the downturn was Mason Hayes & Curran. Its website declares that the legal firm “holds one of the most important private corporate collections of Irish and international contemporary art”. Former partners Declan Moylan and Colman Curran started purchasing art in the early 1990s, and the collection of over 200 pieces is now overseen by an art committee, which includes staff volunteers. 

Christine O’Donovan, chair of Mason Hayes & Curran, told The Currency: “Our collection is made up of visual artworks consisting of paintings, prints, photography and sculpture. We display most of it in our offices on Barrow Street for clients and staff to enjoy. Our policy is to support contemporary and emerging artists who live and work in Ireland and to support Irish artists wherever they live and work. We host an annual exhibition, usually in December, where we invite emerging contemporary artists to exhibit in our offices. This has been a great success and source for acquisitions.”

Asked why the firm considers it important to have an art collection, she says it has noticed how commentary on the artworks sparks conversation. “Sharing of opinions and comments, away from sometimes complex and difficult issues requiring legal assistance and advice, helps to put people at ease and can serve as a pleasant distraction,” O’Donovan said.

“I take a small sense of joy when my partners and colleagues comment on new acquisitions, not always complimentary. These are made by our art committee, and so taste, styles and choices are subject to change. Having art as part of our culture and ethos is a means of fostering staff engagement, and builds relationships across departments and functions.”

Irish Life’s corporate art collection is shown in its Dublin campus and in its customer care centre in Dundalk. It, too, has an “art group” managing the collection. “The group is made up of staff members, who ensure it continues to be refreshed and modernised to represent Ireland in all its diversity, while simultaneously supporting and showcasing up-and-coming artistic talent,” the company said.

Public displays

The modern way of corporate collecting – displaying the work of Irish artists within offices and developments for the benefit of the wider public – is exemplified by the property developers IPUT.

Its initiative Living Canvas aims to display works in large outdoor formats at locations such as Wilton Park and the Tropical Fruit Warehouse Building in Dublin. IPUT has used artworks to enhance several of its developments, most notably Night Gates by Eilis O’Connell at Ten Molesworth Street.

The building, occupied by AIB, also features a seven-metre-high ash sculpture by Joseph Walsh in its reception area. Significantly, “Magnus V” can be seen by the public from both Molesworth Street and South Frederick Street.

Google has taken a similar approach. While the tech firm does not have a collection and is known more for community engagement, it did commission illustrator Fuchsia MacAree to design six murals for its data centre in Dublin, covering over 100 metres of wall. MacAree was also hired by Facebook to complete three laser-cut wood murals for its partner centre and the social-media platform has offered artist-in-residency programmes in the past.

Microsoft started a collection in 1996, managed by a voluntary committee of employees, with workers choosing pieces from exhibitions staged about three times a year. The firm did not respond to questions about the collection’s progress since.

Any hard-headed Chief Financial Officer who queries why their company is spending money on art could be won around by the argument that it’s actually tax efficient. Art is treated as ‘machinery or plant’ under tax law, and is therefore eligible for the annual ‘wear and tear’ allowance of 12.5 per cent.

Ronan Lyons, director of the Molesworth Gallery, says he is always surprised at how few firms are aware of the generous tax allowance and fail to avail of it.

“In Ireland, an art buyer can allow the purchase cost of artwork against tax, provided it is placed in their place of business where the public can view it,” he explains. “Suitable sites are reception areas, common access meeting rooms, and canteens. The establishment of a company art collection is a very ‘tax-effective’ acquisition as the annual ‘wear and tear’ allowance on this capital expenditure is currently 12.5pc per annum and, consequently, most of the purchase price can be recovered.”

Business to Arts points out another benefit of a company having an art collection – it could make working from the office, rather than from home, more attractive to staff. “Last year, particularly, we were being asked by clients for new ways to entice employees back in,” says CEO Louise O’Reilly. “There is a lot of interest among companies in how to engage their employees in a different way with spaces, and how to use spaces in a more collaborative way, and make [offices] a more creative environment where people can do collaborative work before going back home to their quieter spaces.”

She says Business to Arts’ CEO forum last November considered the impact of hybrid working on Dublin city centre, and there was a clear desire among employers and developers to figure out how to entice people back in. “If you are just coming into a grey space building that is really bland and boring, you are not going to get the creative juices flowing,” O’Reilly points out. “Creativity within the space, such as a co-designed artist-led project that gets people engaged, is one avenue. Other kinds of commissioned work, or engagement with the existing art collection, for both clients and staff, are other ways to get people interested again.”

O’Reilly says Business to Arts has about 60 corporate members, and art collections are a central part of activity for about one-sixth of these. The size of collections goes from under 50, in owner-managed companies or SMEs, up to over 500 pieces in large institutions. Inevitably, many of those would be in storage and have to be cared for.

“If companies are going to sell, you talk about how to use the money raised to support artists in another way,” she said. “There’s no question of ‘let’s just get rid of all these’; that does not happen anymore. Overall I am struck by just how thoughtful, authentic, and well-motivated a lot of the conversations we have with corporate members are.”