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Toronto Dominion Bank Collection
The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa has teamed up with one of the country's
largest financial institutions to present an exhibition of exceptional art from Canada's North. ItuKiagatta! Inuit Sculpture
from the Collection of the TD Bank Financial Group is on display at the Gallery from March 23 until June 5, 2005. ItuKiagatta!,
an expression that means "How it amazes us!" is in the Labrador Inuktitut dialect, features 91 of the finest stone, bone and
ivory sculptures from TD Bank Financial Group's (TDBFG) Inuit Art Collection, representing an early vital period in the development
of Inuit art. After its opening in Ottawa, a smaller version of the show featuring about 50 works, will tour other cities
in Canada, including Winnipeg, Halifax, Edmonton, Victoria and Montreal.
In addition to sponsoring the exhibition, TDBFG presented the National Gallery
of Canada Foundation with a $125,000 donation to enhance the Gallery's student intern program and to acquire a new work of
Inuit art. The gift will allow the Gallery to increase the number of internships it offers to eligible students and
graduates every year.
TDBFG already sponsors four paid positions that offer study and training opportunities
in the fields of Art Museum Education, Museum Collections Management, Art Librarianship and Library Preservation Technology.
Deutsche Bank Collection
"Masterpieces from the Deutsche Bank Collection" was recently on
display (through January 16, 2005) at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. The exhibition included 140 examples
by 59 20th century German artists.
The exhibition included works by Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner, Gabriele Münter, Max Beckmann, Günther Uecker, Gerhard Richter, Neo Rauch: outstanding paintings, drawings and sculptures
by some 50 German-speaking artists from the Deutsche Bank Collection were presented in chronological order in seven exhibition
rooms of the Pushkin Museum. Each section reflected a stage in the development of German art in the past century.
Begun at the end of the 70s, the Deutsche Bank collection is
one of the earliest still existing corporate art collections, and the bank's interest has been om collecting
principally works on paper. Today it is one of the largest corporate collections, consisting of over 50,000 works displayed
internationally in the bank's offices, for the enjoyment of staff members, customers and guests.
As a cooperation between the Pushkin Museum and Deutsche Bank Art—the
Russian and German curators respectively—the exhibition was conceived as the continuation of a cultural dialogue
between national tradition and the future perspectives of a united Europe. The exhibition is the most recent example
of a German-Russian dialogue that has been continuing for over the past quarter century.
The Bank's long tradition of sponsoring bilateral cultural exchange
owes a great debt to the personal initiative of F. Wilhelm Christians, who as Spokesman of the Board of Managing Directors
from 1976 to 1988, not only advocated intensive economic cooperation with the former Soviet Union but also initiated
a number of pioneering exhibition projects in the two countries.
The most important German-Russian exhibitions that the Deutsche
Bank has sponsored and realized during the past 20 years have included People and Landscapes (1983) in
the Central House of Artists in Moscow, featuring the first exhibition of works by Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and
Joseph Beuys in the Russian capital; the German-Russian touring exhibition Terror and Hope—Artists See Peace and
War (1986/87); the Georg Baselitz exhibition of works from the Deutsche Bank Collection in Moscow's Small Manege (1997);
and the Berlin/Moscow exhibition in the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin (1995).
A.G. Edwards and Sons Corporate Art Collection
"The Evolution of Poster Design: Poster Graphics from the A.G. Edwards
and Sons Corporate Art Collection," November 3 - December 18, 2004, Dublin Arts Council Gallery, Dublin, Ohio.
The Evolution of Poster Design included works ranging from late 19th century color lithographs by Jules Chéret and Alphonse
Mucha, the Art Deco-inspired imagery of Cassandre, and designs produced by modern day pioneers like Wolfgang Weingart and
Werner Jeker. The exhibition not only offered a survey of printing technology advancements, but also showcased the
aesthetic traditions of the venerable French, Swiss, German, English and American schools of design, among others.
A.G. Edwards & Sons began its corporate art collection in 1967. Spanning more than 200 years and including over 4,000
works by noted American and European artists, the collection represents a broad range of print types, including lithographs,
engravings, woodcuts, serigraphs, gelatin silver and platinum prints as well as mixed media. The firm began collecting poster
graphics in the mid-1980s, viewing them as an extraordinary sociopolitical documentation of their times.
A.G. Edwards created the traveling exhibition program in 1991. With the collection, the firm’s branch offices have
the opportunity to bring portions of the collection to their communities and share it with a greater public. It also allows
for AGE branches to give back to their communities, and for small museums and community cultural institutions to be able to
host exhibitions of a caliber that would otherwise be beyond their means.
Gifts from the Wells Fargo
Collection on display at the Boise Art Museum
The Boise Art Museum already had a number of Northwest artists in its permanent collection when, in
February 2004, it got an unexpected boost. Wells Fargo, which has a respected corporate trove of art, donated 20 works of
predominantly Northwest art to the museum including significant works by many of the region’s most renowned figures,
most of them born in the early 20th century. The gift comprised of paintings, drawings, sculpture and prints from as early
as 1943, representing a particularly fertile period of innovative, creative activity for Washington and Oregon which began
in the 1940s. Sprinkled with other holdings from BAM’s collection, the result is an intelligently presented survey entitled
Artists of the Northwest offering a rare opportunity to experience legendary art at its best. The collection is on display
now at the Boise Art Museum through May 15, 2005. The museum's website is at http://www.boiseartmuseum.org/exhibits_current.asp
A.G. Edwards Collection also in Poughkeepsie
Twenty-seven art works from the A. G. Edwards corporate
collection were also on display in a second location -- in Poughkeepsie, New York. 'The theme of the art show was sort of a historic overview of 20th-century art,'' said
Shelley Hagen, curator of the A.G. Edwards corporate art collection based in St. Louis, Missouri. Hagen
said the 4,200 piece collection -- which the corporation started in 1967 and represents its Midwestern roots -- covers modernism,
abstract expressionism, pop, conceptualism, minimalism and contemporary art.
The exhibit included an image of former President Ronald Reagan
in ''Van Heusen'' from Andy Warhol's ad portfolio, Alfred Stieglitz's photo of his daughter in ''The Steerage,'' work by Robert
Motherwell and Edward Steichen to art by Judy Pfaff, a professor at Bard College in Annandale.
The exhibition was
sponsored by The Investment Group of Brady, Brennan & Coccuto of A.G. Edwards & Sons. The three financial consultants
and administrative assistants moved from Fishkill to Rhinebeck in November. Agents Darrelyn Brennan, Michael Brady and Barbara
Boccuto wanted to extend the firm to the community and contacted the center in Rhinebeck about the art collection.
A.G. Edwards has sponsored more than 50 public exhibitions since the
early 1990s. The Performing Arts Center was the first time it was presented in a theater.
Excerpts from an article in the Poughkeepsie Journal, January
7, 2005, by Nicole Edwards
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