Niki Jaech, a receptionist in Ernst & Young’s Republic Plaza office, shares the bulk of her workday with a pair of 3-foot-tall papier-maché horses by Colorado artist Dede LaRue. A panorama of Earth’s continents spills across the back of one horse. Bare trees are tattooed on the other.
“They bring the office to life,” Jaech said. “Everything else is monochromatic and neutral.”
Fine art can be good business for companies that want to increase brand recognition, appeal to clients and provide a comfortable work environment. But unless you’re a client or an employee, you’re not likely to see their prestigious collections.
That’s one reason art from the collections of more than 20 local companies will be on display Thursday through April 5 at Republic Plaza, 370 17th St.
Sponsored by Brookfield Properties in cooperation with the Colorado Council on the Arts and Arts for Colorado, the free exhibit will include art from Gates Corp., Kaiser Permanente and Delta Dental, among others. Pieces range from the reasonably priced folk art favored by public-relations firm JohnstonWells to the blue-chip collection of law firm Davis Graham & Stubbs, which includes works by abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell.
Over the past four years, Ernst & Young has spent $30,000 on art for its downtown office.
“The primary benefit for us is to create an environment where people want to work,” said Mark Siegel, a partner at the accounting firm.
First Western Trust Bank has a group of paintings, sculptures and pen-and-ink drawings titled “New West: Person, Place and Spirit.” None is in the exhibit, but the pieces range from a waist-high ceramic rabbit head to a landscape with a free-floating home at its center. All were chosen to appeal to a sophisticated audience.
“Our clients are high-worth individuals and tend to like art,” said Warren Olsen, First Western chief investment officer. “We want an environment that gets them interested and talking.”
Most corporations avoid nudes and pieces that might offend some viewers. But that doesn’t mean a corporate collection has to be sterile, said Rebecca Macsovits, First Western’s director of marketing.
“We like controversial pieces because they make people talk,” she said. “You are looking for that emotional reaction. That is what a good piece of art does for you.”
The pieces also help attract job candidates who have in-demand wealth-management skills and can be choosy about where they work, Olsen said.
The three-member committee that shared the responsibility for choosing the art never considered decorating with cheaper, more conventional pieces, he added.
“We wanted this to be real art,” he said. “We didn’t want it to be corporate decoration.”
Collections don’t have to be expensive to be effective, said Alison Werasmith, president of Art Management and Planning Associates, a Denver firm that helps companies pick and maintain artwork.
Local corporations seldom pay more than $5,000 for a piece of art, she said. And many companies buy solely from Colorado-based artists.
In most cases, art helps companies connect with their communities, said Werasmith.
The art at Kaiser Permanente facilities cheers employees but may play a more important role for hospital patients, said Jane Lewis, Kaiser’s art coordinator.
“We always have original art in our lobbies,” she said. “Art is very healing. When you have someone who is very sick and has to wait a few minutes, it gives them something to look at.”
Most companies don’t include art collections as part of their investment strategies, and it’s a good thing, said Frank Hettig, director of modern contemporary and Latin American Art at auction house Bonhams & Butterfields in Los Angeles.
“An artist can be very hot at one time and a few years later completely forgotten,” he said.
“People who can afford to buy art are generally better making money at what they do,” said Denver art adviser and curator Simon Zalkind. “If the motivation is investment, I would discourage that.”
But displaying the art outside the office can be a good advertising and branding ploy, particularly for a firm with a museum- quality collection.
Last year, for instance, financial-services giant UBS exhibited its collection, with works by Roy Lichtenstein and other famous artists, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Even when it stays within corporate walls, art can enhance the environment and improve morale, said Ted Job, the general manager of Upstairs Downstairs Property Inspections, who selected art for StorageTek when he worked there between 1998 and 2004.
“It is all about trying to make a productive environment for people, and using artwork is one way a company can do that,” he said.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
