Passage in the New York Times
August 23, 2017
We pulled an article from our archives!
The New York Times featured a story about the growing role of major corporations in their contributions to the arts through expanding their art collections.
”I don’t think anybody could walk away from here without being impressed,” said Donald M. Kendall, the chairman of Pepsico and one of the nation’s pre-eminent corporate collectors. He has selected 39 major works of sculpture for the company’s headquarters here.”
Pepsico, which moved in 1970 from Manhattan to a campus-style headquarters on 150 acres, has made its grounds into what it calls a sculpture garden. Works by Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, George Segal and several other of the century’s most celebrated sculptors are represented.
”This makes us a first-class company,” Mr. Kendall said.”
And at Pepsico, the sculptures selected by Mr. Kendall have become one of the nation’s most popular and critically praised corporate art collections. Pepsico’s grounds, which are open to the public every day, resemble a huge park in which sculptural forms rise from the landscape with each turn of the eye.
The sculptures can be seen from most windows in the company’s 15-year-old complex, and Pepsico’s employees are encouraged to take business visitors and their families on tours of the grounds.
Pepsico, meanwhile, continues to buy sculptures. The company has added three works to its collection over the last three months, including the last sculpture completed by Jean Dubuffet, the French master who died in July at the age of 85, and a stainless-steel work by Kenneth Snelson, a prominent New York artist.
The company also acquired a mammoth sculpture by Richard Erdman, a 33-year-old American. Working for two years under a Pepsico commission, he carved an abstract form, titled ”Passage,” from a 220-ton block of travertine marble in Italy.
Mr. Erdman’s work, the world’s largest travertine sculpture, was installed at Pepsico’s sculpture garden in June.”
You can read the full article here!