Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

A Bold Bank Collection

January 18, 2010 by Marion Maneker

Jackie Wullschlager shows how to do corporate collecting right in the Financial Times with this review of the Fleming Foundation show of Scottish Colourists:

G Leslie Hunter’s painting ‘Peonies in a Chinese Vase’ (c1930)
G Leslie Hunter’s painting ‘Peonies in a Chinese Vase’ (c1930)

Lehman Brothers favoured dynamic American prints: following the company’s collapse, works by Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana that once adorned its offices were sold off at auction in November. The Royal Bank of Scotland’s collection, the largest corporate art holding in Britain, speaks of a 250-year-history of dignity and canniness pierced with 21st-century ineptitude: from rare portraits by Johann Zoffany to David Hockney to a Callum Innes painting discarded after a cleaner doused it with ammonia, and a Frank Auerbach sold because it was deemed too difficult for employees to live with. Following RBS’s rescue in 2008, the future of its 2,000 art- works, most never shown publicly, is uncertain.

A model of corporate excellence in acquiring, showing and conserving art is the Fleming Foundation. In 1968, David Donald, a director of Flemings Investment Bank, suggested brightening up new City offices in London’s Crosby Square with a few pictures. Unhampered by business plans, budgets or committees, he concentrated on Scottish pictures – a nod to the bank’s Scottish roots – and bought staggeringly well. Chase Manhattan acquired Flemings in 2000 but the Fleming family preserved the collection in a Mayfair gallery that has become London’s unofficial embassy for Scottish art. This month, it celebrates its 10th anniversary with a complete display of the jewels of the collection: 30 Scottish colourist works acquired when Samuel Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Francis Cadell were still the rock-bottom-poor relations of British modernism.

A Prime Selection of Scottish Colourists (Financial Times)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Kevin Spacey: Arts Economically EssentialKevin Spacey: Arts Economically Essential
  • Small Funds; Big ReturnsSmall Funds; Big Returns
  • Who Caused the Market Slump? Cheyenne Westphal & Alex RotterWho Caused the Market Slump? Cheyenne Westphal & Alex Rotter
  • Deep on the Iranian Border, By the Caspian Sea, a Picasso Changes HandsDeep on the Iranian Border, By the Caspian Sea, a Picasso Changes Hands
  • London Wares Visit New YorkLondon Wares Visit New York
  • Detroit Art City: The DIA DocumentaryDetroit Art City: The DIA Documentary

Filed Under: Collectors Tagged With: Scottish Colourists

About Marion Maneker

LiveArt

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor
 

Loading Comments...