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	Passion For the Arts By David Finn

The question as to whether there is such a passion among CEOs whose companies support the arts came up one day when Christopher "Kip" Forbes, Vice President of Forbes, Inc., was telling Judi Jedlicka, the President of the Business Committee for the Arts, and me about a large painting of beautifully dressed young women sitting in a circle that was hanging behind his desk. He told us why he loved that painting and how pleased he was that it just fitted on the wall in his office. That led to a conversation about Kip’s father, Malcolm Forbes, and his passion for acquiring works of art, especially his famous Fabergé collection, which was a major feature of the Forbes Magazine Galleries in the company’s New York headquarters.

“What is it that inspires so many business executives to be involved in the arts?” we asked ourselves. It was a question all three of us had thought about for a long time. Asking it again led to a fascinating series of interviews of CEOs who were members of the Business Committee of the Arts. I agreed to do the interviews and to photograph the executives, Kip agreed to publish the interviews and photographs in Forbes Magazine in a series entitled The Art of Leadership, and Judi agreed that the Business Committee for the Arts would work with Ruder·Finn to produce a book explaining why business leaders think it wise to devote company resources for programs in the arts. It proved to be a remarkable project, and when it was finished all three of us believed it had led to many insights as to why so many business executives in our time have dedicated company resources to the sponsorship of the arts and building art collections for their companies. It was quite enlightening for me to learn about their personal stories through these interviews. As it turned out, many of those I interviewed had been or were still Ruder·Finn clients, since we had been a pioneer in working with corporations that support the arts. For many years we have been the only large public relations company with a department devoted to cultural programs—we call it Ruder·Finn Arts and Communications Counselors. So I decided to concentrate in this article on those I interviewed who have been or are our clients.

David Rockefeller

My first interview was with David Rockefeller. It was he who was responsible for the creation of the Business Committee for the Arts. The book that was finally published was dedicated to him because he had provided the vision, leadership, and encouragement that led to the growth of enduring alliances between business and the arts. The original vision came from a speech he made to the Conference Board in 1966 in which he suggested that a committee for the arts be established along the lines of the Council for Financial Aid to Education that had been created some years earlier and which had successfully stimulated corporate support of education. It was that speech that resulted in the creation of the Business Committee for the Arts, and David Rockefeller was its chairman for many years.

In my interview, David told me that his grandfather had been interested in supporting education rather than the arts, but that his parents were quite different, especially his mother, who was a great influence on his love of the arts. She was one of the three founders of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was chairman of the board for many years. When he was young, David had been surrounded in his home by the art of many periods—Classical, Asian, Gothic, Renaissance, and works from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Initially he was drawn to representational art, but as he spent more time at the Museum of Modern Art, where he took his mother’s place on the board after she died, his perspective broadened.

He told me that he started working at Chase in 1946 after he received his doctorate. The Chase Art Collection came into being in 1959 when the Chase Bank headquarters was opened in downtown Manhattan. As it happened, Ruder·Finn was retained to handle the public relations for the opening of that building, and it was a source of great pride for us to be involved in such an important event. We later worked with him again when the Rockefeller Brothers Fund arranged for the family’s remarkable property in Pocantico Hills in Westchester, N.Y., to be opened to the public.

David told me that it was the architect for the Chase building, Gordon Bunschaft, (who later became a good friend of mine), who suggested that works of art should be acquired to add to the aesthetics of the building. David was enthusiastic about the idea since art had been part of his life since childhood, and he felt that acquiring works of art for the company would enrich the lives of those who worked there and convey the bank’s dedication to high values—cultural as well as human and financial.

I photographed David in front of a great Dubuffet sculpture that had been acquired for the Chase Plaza, and it was marvelous to see him standing in front of that remarkable work with its ingenious curves and lines. In the course of the interview he told me that the bank’s collection already included more than 13,000 objects, and there were works of art in all offices and branches. There was no doubt in his mind that Chase’s involvement with the arts had been a positive factor in the overall image of the bank around the world.

Donald Hall

In my interview with Donald Hall, the CEO of Hallmark, we talked about his love of Henry Moore sculptures, and how my friendship with Moore led to a project Ruder·Finn worked on with his company. I photographed him sitting in front of a major Henry Moore sculpture on the beautifully landscaped grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. The sculpture was part of a major gift of Moore works by Hallmark.

The collection of Moore sculptures had once been owned by George Ablah, another Ruder·Finn client and a dear friend of mine from Wichita, Kansas, and he had sold it to Hallmark with a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that it would be kept together in a newly designed sculpture park next to the museum. It was George’s suggestion that Hallmark retain Ruder·Finn to be part of this unique project, and it was a great privilege for me to play a role in this remarkable sculpture program. I was a member of the committee to choose the landscape architect to design the grounds and to plan all the steps leading up to the opening of the Moore collection. One of the most creative aspects of the program was to build excitement in the city by installing individual Moore sculptures in ideal locations around the city while the park was being landscaped. I photographed the works in those many different sites, and we publicized their installations to help people who lived in or visited the city to become aware of a major new project that would soon come to fruition.

In my interview with Donald Hall he told about how, years ago, he and his wife decided to acquire African art for their home not only because they loved it but also because they thought it would help their children learn to appreciate sculpture. Later, his company developed one of the country’s finest collections of photographs in the country, and by coincidence, one of its early advisors, Peggy Weiss, was a well known writer of photography who encouraged me many years ago when I began to photograph sculpture for different books. Don told me of other cultural contributions Hallmark had made over the years, especially the television series known as the Hallmark Hall of Fame, which began in 1951 and won more Emmy awards than any television program in history. It meant a great deal to him to be personally involved in the development of each of the programs in that series.

Donald B. Marron

Over a period of 30 years, as chairman and chief executive officer of Paine Webber (1980-2000) and chairman of UBS America (2000-2003), Donald B. Marron put together one of the most significant modern and contemporary art collections in the world, which was known as the Paine Webber Collection.

The Paine Webber Collection became the core of the UBS Art Collection when UBS and Paine Webber merged in 2000, and Donald Marron now serves as an advisor to the UBS Art Collection. He is also building a new personal collection of contemporary art at his new company, Lightyear Capital, where he serves as Chairman and CEO.

Marron told me that his interest in the arts began when he visited MoMA as a young boy admiring cubist works. As a young adult, he was initially fascinated by the painters of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School, although at the time there was relatively little information available about their work. Then his interest expanded to the twentieth century, and he became intrigued with printmaking. Finally he began to collect contemporary paintings, and over the years the Paine Webber collection grew to include about 850 post–1945 works by major European and American artists. He established a rule never to put a work of art in an office unless the executive wanted it. When they hung a work in a public space, they were very responsive to individual reactions. If individuals did not like a work, they were asked to give it a little time, and if it was still an issue, it was replaced.

He told me that he recognized that corporations are businesses first, and supporters of the arts only when they are large enough to afford it. Many people especially appreciated the opportunity to work for the company because of its commitment to the arts.

Under his leadership, the collection was shared with the public through three major exhibition tours and loans to major museums The reviews of the exhibition were positive and company employees in each city viewed the collection as an asset to the business. Don felt that some of the people in the company were beginning to feel passionate about art and were starting their own collections. In early 2000, Don initiated the gift of 44 works from the collection to the Museum of Modern Art.

Donald Marron also spearheaded the creation of the Paine Webber Art Gallery (now the UBS Art Collection) in the lobby area of its headquarters in New York. The gallery presents exhibitions organized by New York–based not-for-profit cultural organizations such as The Studio Museum in Harlem, The American Folk Art Museum, The New York Botanical Garden, The American Museum of the Moving Image, The International Center of Photography, and divisions of the Smithsonian Institution. The company also initiated an arts education program called “Little Dividends” for the children of its employees, and once a year they were invited to spend a Saturday in its headquarters to create their own works of art. The company arranged for professional artists to be there as teachers. Once a year there was a show in the gallery of the children’s works. In addition PaineWebber has been a major corporate supporter of major exhibitions such as Picasso and the Weeping Women, Henri Rousseau, and Frank Stella, as well as a sponsor of classical music programs on the radio.

“Most people do not realize the impact the arts have on their lives, “ Donald Marron told me. “Art is not a separate elitist activity… The bridge to the visual arts is museums and businesses that are enlightened. Throughout my life I have been trying to make art more accessible, and involve more people with it.”

John Bryan

The interview with John Bryan, Chairman of the Sara Lee Corporation, brought back memories for me as well as for him. Many years ago, I had known the founder of the company, Nathan Cummings. It was then called the Consolidated Food Company, and I met Nate when he acquired the Hires Root Beer Company, which had been a client of ours. Nate was a fabulous collector of paintings and sculptures, and although he had had very limited education in Canada where he grew up, he learned about the arts after he became a successful businessman. He loved to buy works at modest prices and never hesitated to sell them when the market value escalated —very much the same way he bought and sold companies.

As a young man, John Bryan had been the head of his family’s meat company which was one of the many businesses that Nate acquired, and over the years he rose in the management of the parent company, eventually to become CEO. When Nate was in his eighties, John suggested that the company buy some of the finest works in Nate’s personal collection as a tribute to him as the founder, and Nate was thrilled to feel that his legacy in the company would be honored.

After Nate died, John changed the name to Sara Lee, which was the name of one of the company’s well known subsidiaries, but he had a special feeling about the role Nate Cummings had played as the founder. As an expression of his respect, he conceived a project that was surely unique in the history of business art collections—he would engage in a search around the world for outstanding works of art that once belonged to Nate Cummings, and buy them for the Sara Lee headquarters in Chicago. Over the years, it grew into one of the finest collections of late nineteenth-and twentieth-century paintings and sculptures—all from works that had once been owned by Nate Cummings.

When Sara Lee was a Ruder·Finn client, I always enjoyed working with John. I was especially excited when he conceived the idea of publishing a book on the Sara Lee collection. I took the photographs of the sculptures for the book and wrote an introductory text about Nate Cummings, explaining how the Sarah Lee collection came into being.

In my interview with John, he told me he had very little involvement with the arts as a boy or young man. He became exposed to the arts through Nate Cummings, and became a serious and knowledgeable lover of the arts. Eventually he became Chairman of the Board of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the Chairman of the newly created Millennium Park in Chicago (also Ruder·Finn clients) with an outdoor pavilion designed by Frank Gehry and superb works of art commissioned by leading artists, Anish Kapour and Jaume Plensa.

John told me that he believes supporting the arts fosters quality and value in business as well as in life, and it became part of the company’s fundamental commitments.

Before he retired as CEO he created a program of donating the major works in the collection to museums in cities in which Sara Lee divisions were located as a final way of celebrating and perpetuating the company’s long-term commitment to the arts. He had a great sense of history, which is unusual in the corporate world, and he wanted the company’s contribution to the world of culture to be perpetuated in museums for the public at large.

Walter Elisha

Walter Elisha, CEO of Springs Industries, told me that his parents immigrated from the Christian sector of Northern Iran, and that his father was a photographer with the U.S. Army in World War I. Walt said that he and his brother had cameras ever since they were children. When he became CEO of Springs, he was delighted to learn that his predecessor, Pete Scotese, had been responsible for a major Springs program of sponsoring photography exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and other museums around the country. Sometimes when a new CEO takes office, arts programs developed by their predecessors are discontinued, but Walter was delighted to have Springs carry on its tradtion of being the largest corporate supporter of photography exhibitions in the country—including works by Ansel Adams, Eugene Atget, Alfred Steiglitz, Yousuf Karsh, Felix Nadar, Andre Kertesz and others.

When Pete Scotese was CEO, Ruder·Finn worked with Springs on all of its photography exhibitions. Then when Walt became CEO, he wanted us not only to continue in that role, but also to help develop a new program that would reflect the values that were inherent in this more than 100-year-old family company. The program we developed with him was called “The Springs of Achievement.”

The name was a play on words. The word “Springs” had originally come from the name of the founder of the company, Elliot Springs, but we felt that the word has many other significant meanings. Springtime was one of the most lovely seasons of the year. Springs of energy had to do with working hard, exercising, and doing well in sports. Springs from the ground created rivers that enriched life on earth. So we suggested we think of Springs as the source of these many contribution to our lives rather than just the name of the founder. To give new meaning to the company’s name, “The Springs of Achievement” program would focus on the seven values that were inherent in the company’s tradition—quality, creativity, service, education, personal and family wellbeing, respect for history, and planning for the future. We developed a variety of programs including awards, displays, banners, articles in local newspapers—all honoring employees who were outstanding examples of the seven values.

One of the most exciting projects Walter created was commissioning a sculptor, Bruno Lucchesi, to produce life-size sculptures for each of the seven values of the Springs of Achievement. The sculptures would be placed on the grounds of the beautifully landscaped company headquarters in Fort Mill, South Carolina. It took five years to create the sculptures, and when each one was placed on a carefully chosen location there was an impressive ceremony for employees and neighbors to celebrate the occasion and explain why these outstanding works of art helped to define the character and tradition of the company.

Ray Nasher

Ray Nasher was in the real estate business, and one of his great achievements was the creation of the NorthPark Shopping Center in Dallas, Texas, which had been heralded as an architectural, business, and cultural masterpiece.

When I interviewed Ray for our Business Committee of the Arts series, he told me that NorthPark had been designed to be a retail complex unlike any other. It would not only provide a beautiful environment for those who came to shop, but it would also enrich their cultural lives with concerts during the summer and the placement throughout the landscape of sculptures by such outstand ing artists as Jonathan Borofsky, Alexander Calder, Mark de Suvero, Henry Moore, and Beverly Pepper. In view of our common interests in the relationship between business and the arts, Northpark became a Ruder·Finn client. At the time we even opened our Dallas office in Ray’s headquarters.

In my interview for the Forbes series, Ray told me that he and his wife, Patsy, had begun their collection by acquiring outstanding pre- Columbian sculptures. Patsy had a special feeling for those works, and I was so impressed with their quality that I photographed quite a few of them. Patsy was delighted with the photographs and wanted to publish a book about the collection, but tragically she became ill with cancer and died before she had a chance to do so. I still treasure those photographs and have some of the prints framed in our New York office.

Both Ray and Patsy loved Henry Moore sculptures, and one day when I accompanied Moore on a visit to Dallas for an unveiling of a major sculpture that had been acquired for the Dallas City Hall, I arranged to bring him to the Nashers’ home for dinner. Ray told me later that one of the great moments in his and Patsy’s life was when Moore became fascinated by a striking Oceanic mask resting on the dressing table in their bedroom.

I remember Moore sitting down on the bed and asking if he could borrow a pencil and paper to make a sketch. The drawing that he made that evening of the Nashers’ mask became a lithograph and eventually became part of Ray’s and Patsy’s collection. Ray often talked about that evening as one of the most memorable times of his and Patsy’s lives. Ray and Patsy always dreamed that some day their remarkable sculpture collection could be placed permanently in a museum. Eventually Ray made a very generous gift to the Dallas Museum, which created an outstanding building and sculpture garden for the collection.

Henry T. Segerstrom

I photographed Henry T. Segerstrom, the managing partner of C.J. Segerstrom and Sons, sitting on a stone in a beautifully designed Noguchi garden. Henry told me a moving story of how the garden came about. He had always admired Isamu Noguchi’s work and wanted to commission him to design a sculpture garden for one of his office complexes. He had seen pictures of some of Noguchi’s work—especially a fountain in Detroit— and had been very taken by it. He knew that Noguchi was born in California, and that he never had a major environmental commission in the state.

It seemed to Henry that emotionally he would like to leave an imprint in the place of his birth. So he arranged a meeting with Noguchi in New York, bringing along his building plans, which included a site for his work. Unfortunately Noguchi reviewed and rejected the project. Henry returned home disappointed but not defeated. He sent the artist a handwritten, emotional letter telling him of his admiration for his work, and his dream of sponsoring a great Noguchi garden in California. Apparently Noguchi was moved by the letter and agreed to look at the site on his next visit to California. When he did so he was impressed, and this time he accepted the commission. The result was a magical space that Noguchi called California Scenario. The outdoor garden represented the ecology of the state of California and is considered today to be one of the finest sculpture gardens Noguchi ever created.

Henry had a long history of supporting cultural projects in California, including the South Coast Repertory Theater, recognized as America’s best regional theater. His family contributed $10 million and five acres of land to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, of which he became the Founding Chairman. Eventually they gave seven acres and much more money. I interviewed him in front of the Center’s Segerstrom Hall. Subsequently he became a Ruder·Finn client to help him with new projects which would continue to enrich the area, including the new Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which will open in September 2006 as part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Jim Wolfensohn

In my interview with Jim Wolfensohn he told me that he grew up in Australia, where he received his Liberal Arts and Law degree. Subsequently he received an MBA from Harvard and returned to Australia, where he started an investment bank. Eventually he created a firm to provide strategic corporate advice, and it became the tenth or eleventh company in the world serving corporations in mergers and acquisitions. One of the reasons he started his own firm was because he wanted the freedom to spend 20 or 30 percent of his time on non-business activities, particularly in the arts.

Jim’s interest in the arts began at a young age when he started playing the piano. He took up the cello when he was 43, and Jacqueline du Pré was his teacher. He told me that being a musician was a very important part of his development as a supporter of the arts.

In 1970, he joined the board of Carnegie Hall. Isaac Stern, who was also on the board, and he formed a partnership to set Carnegie Hall on a sound course for the future. Then in 1990 he became the Chairman and CEO of the Kennedy Center, which at the time was in terrible financial shape. He made enormous changes to stabilize the center’s financial position and greatly expand its activities.

The Institute for Advanced Studies was a Ruder·Finn client, and when Jim was Chairman of the Board, I photographed him in front of Wolfensohn Hall, which was ideal for concerts attended by the leading scholars who were part of the faculty. He told me that he believed that management was as important in educational and scholarly institutions as in business, although he believed that when academic freedom was at the core, financial discipline must be maintained without being felt. Subsequently Jim was appointed as the head of the World Bank, where once again the arts played an important part in its Washington headquarters. I was delighted to learn that a major sculpture by the Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida had been acquired for the Bank, and by coincidence I was working at the time on a book on Chillida. I had photographed his sculptures in many countries in Europe and the U.S. and had become friendly with the artist and his wife.

The sculpture acquired for the World Bank had not yet been installed and was still in storage in a warehouse in Baltimore, and Jim arranged for me to photograph it in what proved to be a somewhat difficult environment. When I showed the prints to Jim he was delighted that I was able to include the sculpture in the book. It was clear that whatever role Jim played in business or government, the arts would play an important part of his leadership.

Irwin Jaeger

Judi Jedlicka urged me to make a special point of interviewing Irwin Jaeger, the head of a real estate company in Los Angeles. I soon learned why Judi was so anxious for me to do so, for Irwin told me a fascinating story.

When he was in his fifties, he said, he made up his mind that there had to be more to life than just being successful in business. So he decided to volunteer as a teacher in his son’s school in Beverly Hills. For two or three hours each week, he taught a math class and did whatever else would help the teachers and students.

Eventually he realized that a Beverly Hills school didn’t really need his help, so he went to the Ninth Street School in the heart of Skid Row in Central Los Angeles and asked the principal if he could be of help. He ended up assisting an artist, Bob Bates, who was a volunteer teaching art to the students.

That was the beginning of a whole new episode in Irwin’s life. He found it so gratifying to help Bob teach art to children in that terribly depressed area that he acquired a loft in a nearby building and turned it into a studio in which Bob could expand his program and teach art to the children in a number of schools in a neighborhood. It turned out that some 55% of those students came from homeless families, most of which were immigrants. He believed that giving them an opportunity to have art classes (which at that time were not part of the curriculum in Los Angeles public schools) helped to build their selfesteem and take their studies more seriously.

Eventually Irwin helped develop a partnership among the City of Los Angeles, the Community Redevelopment Agency, and the Los Angeles Unified School District to create a new school. Irwin had recently purchased an old auto body shop in Skid Row; it was torn down, money was raised for a new building, and an architect in Frank Gehry’s office, Michael Maltzan, volunteered to design what turned out to be a beautiful school now called Mark Taper Inner-City Arts. Children were bused from a growing number of public schools in the area, and in time almost 8,000 children came to the center during the school day for art classes.

I interviewed Irwin at the school and was overwhelmed by what I saw. The faces of the children were full of smiles as I watched them in music, painting, dancing, and arts and crafts classes. It was truly astonishing. The attitudes of the teachers was amazing as well—they all seemed enormously enthusiastic about what they were doing and thrilled to see the children’s excitement. I suggested that a book be published about this remarkable Inner-City Arts, and Irwin was excited about the idea.

A short time later, I went back to Los Angeles with my daughter, Dena Merriam; I photographed the children for the book, and Dena interviewed the teachers and the children and wrote the text for the book that was entitled The Gift of Imagination — the Story of Inner-City Arts. There were a total of thirty interviews in the series—including Ed Artzt, Chairman of Procter and Gamble; Paul Allaire, Chairman of Xerox; William M. Blount, Chairman of Blount International, Inc.; John Ong, CEO of B.F. Goodrich; Richard C. Notebaert, Chairman of Ameritech; Helge H. Wehmeier, CEO of the Bayer Corporation; and Harry P. Kamen, CEO of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Altogether it was a fascinating experience for me and a fruitful project for the Business Committee for the Arts. It provided a wide variety of examples demonstrating why and how culturally sophisticated and devoted CEOs found sound business reasons to support the arts, thereby enriching the cultural life of their communities while advancing the business interests of their companies.

I think we found convincing evidence that there was indeed a passion behind these many examples of corporate support of the arts.