Surrounded by Art: The Julius Baer Art Collection

Julius Baer, established in Zurich in 1890, is a leading Swiss wealth management group. For nearly as long, the founding family has been engaged in supporting visual and performing arts. In 1981, on the initiative of its then chief executive Hans J. Bär (1927–2011), the company began to build its own collection of contemporary art, guided by the belief that art in a busines environment enhances the culture of discussion and is inspirational to employees and clients alike. Today, the Julius Baer Art Collection comprises more than 5,000 works in a range of media—painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video—by Swiss artists, both internationally renowned ones and emerging talents.
 
This book offers a survey of the collection that is on rotating display at the bank’s offices around the world and highlights its origins and evolution over the past four decades. artistic positions of thirty-five contemporary Swiss artists, such as John M. Armleder, Silvia Bächli, Miriam Cahn, Lutz & Guggisberg, Markus Raetz, Shirana Shahbazi, and Roman Signer, are introduced through brief texts and illustrations of some 350 works from the collection.
 

Barbara Staubli is curator of the Julius Baer Art Collection in Zurich.

Barbara Hatebur is as a research assistant at the Julius Baer Art Collection in Zurich.

Hans Rudolf Reust is an art critic and head of studies at the Department of Fine Arts, Bern University of the Arts.