Touring a Bank's Collection of Photographs

When most people go into a bank, the last thing they are usually thinking about is the art or photographs displayed on the walls. But the curator of this artwork thinks about this all day. Last week we took a tour of the photo collection of one of the most prominent banks in America. Although the display of an Ansel Adams print behind the tellers at the bank was awesome, it was what we saw behind the scenes in the bank's main offices in downtown Chicago that was really something to see. We met with the collection's curator, Whitney, upstairs in onfe of the banks' conference rooms (at an impressively large table) to discuss the history of the collection. She told us that Beaumont Newhall, a highly influential curator and historian, bought the initial 350 photographs to start the bank's collection. Since then, the bank has accumulated around 5500 photos in its collection. And while only a few landscape photos are on public display in the actual bank, each office in the downtown building gets its own photo from the collection and each office resident gets a say in the choosing of the photo they get in their work space. In addition to this service within the bank, Whitney is in charge of over 50 touring exhibitions internationally of the bank's collection. These exhibitions are free of charge to any museum that houses them and come completely ready to hang in their space. The purpose of these exhibitions is to restore some sense of "humanity" to the bank and help out arts organizations, especially in such hard economic times.

Currently, the theme of the majority of the photos in the hallways of the bank's offices are street photography themed, with photographs by Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Friedlander, and William Eggleston, just to name a few. Whitney told us that the purpose of putting all this effort into displaying photos in the offices and work spaces is to excite the business environment and help people think more creatively. I thought this was interesting, especially in a place like a bank, because people don't typically think of bank employees needing to surrounded by art or needing inspiration. But, after being surrounded by so many amazing photographs, its easy to see how their display makes coming to work more enjoyable and gives a sense of comfort to an office-filled work place. I couldn't find my favorite picture that was on display, but here is a portion of it. It's a photo by Robert Frank titled Man With Striped Pants and Tulips. Here are the tulips: