C O L L E C T I N G   T H E   S T A N D A R D   B A N K 

C O R P O R A T E   A R T   C O L L E C T I O N

28 Mar – 3 Jun 2025

The Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection stands as one of the country’s most distinguished and comprehensive collections of its kind. Collectively, these artworks communicate the observations, aspirations and concerns of our country’s finest artists, providing a reflection of the physical, social and cultural fabric of South Africa in all its intriguing complexity. This exhibition encompasses artworks from the bank’s collection acquired in the 30 years prior to South Africa’s democracy and 30 years post this political and social shift and stands as emblematic of the bank’s extensive mile-stone achievements of supporting the arts spanning over four decades. Framed against this rich legacy, the exhibition showcase works drawn from “the vault”, a departure point employed to encourage a broader conversation around the relevance and significance of private and public collections. 

The Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection was initiated in 1938 with the acquisition of a lone painting, a portrait of the first general manager of the Standard Bank, Robert Stewart, after which no further works were acquired until 1968. At the time, the identification and selection of items for purchase relied on the individual preference of the Chairman, AAQ Davies, who displayed strong interest in the fledging collection. Over the years, the role of the executive office in acquiring artworks has evolved and shifted to align with business and client’s needs but also being largely guided by the establishment of a visual arts committee comprising of independent curators, art historians as well as researchers and scholars in the visual art discipline. Accenting parts of the collection is thus also a process of pronouncing moments where the traditional meet the contemporary; where the modern and the conservative find a middle ground and where the past, present and the future intersect. In these instances, the collection creates an opportunity for indigenous practices to be in conversation with contemporary pieces in a contemporary space that allows a parallel trajectory of how art can act as a powerful conduit for bringing the intangible value of heritage and culture to a society. Many of the practices and species depicted in the works in the collection, for example, are not only appreciated for their aesthetic and market value but also the intrinsic worth in highlighting their archival value in documenting endangered species that are rapidly becoming extinct. Most South African collections have a similar footprint and often reveal something about the nature or way in which they were collected. While some collections have particular focus in terms of preferred mediums and genres, quantity, and representations, others seem to collect sporadically and accumulating items over time. In the instance of the Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection this act of collecting, is indomitably marked by a remarkable presence in the eco-system of art production through nurturing a lineage of artists, artworks as well as the art market. The acquisition of artworks for more than 40 years has not only contributed to the stimulation and growth of artists, economically, but also supported their practice and artistic output through the staging of exhibitions at the Standard Bank Gallery. This exhibition is a testament of Standard Bank’s long-term investment in visual art and its collection of one of the most valuable repositories of artworks in the continent.