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The History Of Modern Corporate Collection

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In the 1988, one year after Black Monday when Don Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 23 percent in a single day, Art & Auction the international art market journal published its annual edition with the troubling headline: “Is Corporate Collecting Dead?”. Almost 20 years later, the financial crisis made hundreds of bankers lose their jobs, and the image of people moving out their offices can still be recalled even today, and the same question aroused again. The same questions may appear again and again in the future, but as an essential part of world of art collecting, corporate collecting won’t die in the eyes of most people in the field.

The brief history of modern corporate collection
It is hard to chase back to the origin of the art patronage, since it is nearly as old as art itself, but the shift from a model dating from the Renaissance, in which leaders of industry used the fruits of their labor to purchase or commission superlative art either for their private residences or for the benefit of the public (or of God and the Church), is surprisingly recent. So it’s essential to isolate “modern” corporate collecting from other great but older tradition such as hanging decorative pieces and portraits of founders and other core members to embellish a boardroom or showcase the firm’s position or reputation.
Modern corporate collecting began in nineteenth century in the United States as a movement to preserve the records, memorabilia, and products of a company.

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