Corporate art buyers are dying breed

Law firms and advertising agencies are still splashing out on art for their offices and 5-star hotels are commissioning big works for their public spaces.

But large corporate art collections are increasingly rare, as evidenced by the recent sell off of those once owned by Bank of New Zealand and Spark.

The 500-piece Fletcher Trust Collection, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, is one of the few survivors.

While curator Francis Mcwhannell is sad to see the sale of collections like BNZ’S, he says it is a global trend.

‘‘And fewer of them are on a massive scale these days.’’

Mcwhannell says company mergers and takeovers have played a part in the demise of corporate art collections set up out of a desire to support New Zealand artists.

‘‘Your big multinationals are not going to be interested in investing in local art.’’

Another factor is the design of modern open-plan offices with fewer walls, according to International Art Centre director Richard Thomson, who handled the $1 million sale of the Spark Foundation collection earlier this month.

‘‘They haven’t got the places to hang the art nowadays.’’

Spark Foundation chairperson Andrew Pirie says the time is right to move on from having valuable artworks on office walls, enjoyed by a relatively privileged few working at Spark, and the proceeds will go into a digital equity programme.

While the likes of lawyers and accountants still purchase art for their offices, Thomson says the market is dominated by private rather than corporate buyers.

Auckland art consultant Sophie Coupland agrees. ‘‘I don’t see the corporates buying hardly at all.’’

But she says hotels have recognised the power of art to influence the feel of a space ‘‘in a way that interior design or architecture can’t’’.

She commissioned 49 major works by nine artists for the multimillion-dollar Cordis Hotel refurbishment and is also involved in sourcing eight large art pieces for Auckland’s Intercontinental Hotel, including a 10m screen for the foyer and hundreds of works for the hotel rooms.

Webb’s is handling the controversial disposal of the

BNZ art collection, with the first sale returning more than $13.5m last weekend and the second tranche of 157 lots to be auctioned tomorrow.

Opponents to the sale, including former prime minister Helen Clark, have argued that the culturally significant collection was put together when the bank was state owned and should have remained in public ownership at the time of BNZ’S privatisation in 1992.

Webb’s art director Charles Ninow says the BNZ sale signals the end of an era.

‘‘In terms of corporate collections, I don’t think there is anything quite like what we just sold.’’

However, most buyers are

Kiwis and they are prepared to pay big prices to get what they want. ‘‘There never was any risk of these works being lost overseas.’’

Mcwhannell says the collection he is tasked with curating operates financially independently of the Fletcher business, and acquisitions are funded from trust investments.

He declined to put a value on the collection which is regarded as a ‘‘cultural taonga, not a financial taonga . . . that is why we are no longer an art collection within a corporation but an art collection with a corporate connection’’.

About 40% of the art in the Fletcher Trust Collection is on public display at Fletcher Building’s Auckland headquarters, and the remainder hangs in Government Houses in Auckland and Wellington, and the High Court in Auckland. Works are also regularly loaned out for exhibitions.

Mcwhannell says the loss of the BNZ works into private hands means fewer people get to enjoy them.

‘‘These corporate collections like the BNZ have been regular contributors to public exhibitions, and because they are corporate as opposed to institutional the process for borrowing works is often really quite simple and quick to be responded to.’’

The Spark art auction also provided a windfall for living artists whose works sold for $5000 or more, because the foundation agreed to pay them a 5% royalty.

In April, the Government announced a royalty scheme ensuring visual artists, or their estates, get a 5% payment on art resales but some dealers are already voluntarily paying the royalty even though it will not become law until 2024.

The Spark Foundation’s royalty payments totalled $26,595, including $8250 to artist Gretchen Albrecht whose Inlet West Coast painting sold for a record price of $165,000.

BNZ is putting the revenue from its art sale into a new foundation but artists with works sold at the two auctions will not receive royalties.

Ninow says the 5% royalty is not yet law, and it would be inappropriate to say how much is involved, but Webb’s is making a significant donation to the foundation from its fee.