Guest Opinion: Keeping a Corporate Collection Alive

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Charles Dupplin is chairman of the art and private-client division of Hiscox, a London-based provider of specialist insurance. All images accompanying this article are from the Hiscox corporate collection. 

I was visiting a major and venerable insurance company in a German city recently, and, after a turgid meeting, I asked whether I might be shown some of the company’s well-known corporate art collection.

This rather wrong-footed my hosts, who are more used to a post-meeting visit to the local “bierkeller.”

I was shown various works that dated from the early 20th century, but none of my hosts knew anything about them. I was given a glossy and thick hardback book which had been printed in the early 1980s that described the art collection—which contained many very nice items.

But after this tepid response to my viewing request, it dawned on me that not only had the company’s staff completely lost real interest in the collection, but also that the collection itself had had no significant additions to it for some years. There had been no disposals that anyone could recall in that time, either. The collection, in other words, was effectively dead, providing no value to its host company.

By contrast, at Hiscox, the corporate collection forms part of our culture, and most of the staff know at least something about our collection. Art is regularly moving round the walls of our offices, and there are regular events and sponsorship of emerging artists. We also lend regularly to public and private exhibitions around the world. The collection is a source of pride for all of our staff and very much part of the DNA of our company.

Hiscox started collecting art primarily because of our chairman, Robert Hiscox’s passion for art. A marvellous side effect is the interesting and stimulating surroundings that it provides for our staff and visitors.

Elliot Mcdonald, the curator of the Hiscox corporate collection, searches out new pieces with élan and knowledge, successfully doing the curator’s job of getting under the skin of the art world and advising on what he or she thinks to be a fruitful acquisition.

Much of the art in our collection is high impact and can act as a talking point if conversation flags (as it can do in the world of insurance). We buy regularly, keeping our collection vibrant. But we sell too, as and when things fall out of favor with our chairman and our curator.

Interestingly, I have recently reviewed the economics of our collection. To buy art as an investment would take the soul out of a collection like ours. We have never done so. As good insureds, however, we have to keep our insurance values up to date.

These are, broadly speaking, rising—and in some cases have risen a lot. There have been a few less successful purchases. But still, money spent with passion on art has proved to have been money wisely invested. Gary Player once said “the more I practice the luckier I get”—so it seems with corporate art collecting.