Mary Rozell, the global head of the UBS Art Collection, discusses the Swiss bank’s approach to collecting art and supporting artists
In Lucian Freud’s Double Portrait (1988-90), the Freud family dog Pluto is depicted together with his daughter, Bella. Painted in the British artist’s expressionist style, the masterpiece is one of the more than 50 works, comprising Freud’s landscapes, portraits and nudes, featured in an ongoing exhibition, Lucian Freud: Works from the UBS Art Collection, at the UBS Art Gallery located in the global financial institution’s New York headquarters.
“This is an example of one of the notable pockets of depth in the [UBS Art] Collection,” says Mary Rozell, the global head of the UBS Art Collection, “which demonstrates our ongoing commitment to supporting an artist’s work. We have 54 works by Lucian Freud, most of them his etchings, and the centrepiece of the show is this incredible oil painting, which is very valuable.”
One of the major figurative painters of the 20th century, Freud’s art was characterised by a realistic and often crude approach to the human body, meticulously capturing every wrinkle of skin, every crease of material, every play of light. While he was best known as a painter, his etchings were an integral part of his work. Many of his late etchings, created over a period of nearly two decades from 1982 to 2000, are featured in the exhibition—and through the boldness of the art, one would notice the multilayered dimensions of his subjects.
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This is the first time that the collection of works is being shown in the US, after two previous iterations of the exhibition were held in 2015 at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, and in 2017 at the Martin-Gropius‑Bau in Berlin, Germany. “We are pleased to share with the public this exceptional body of work, which defies perceived norms of corporate collecting,” says Rozell. “Like most of Freud’s oeuvre, the artworks on display are uncompromising and challenging to view, and we hope they will spark both conversation and introspection.”
Sharing such works of art with the public is a cornerstone of the UBS Art Collection. Considered one of the world’s most significant corporate collections of contemporary art, it features over 30,000 artworks, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations, by some of the most influential artists of our time. And with UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse last year, more than 10,000 works will be added from the latter’s art collection.
“Besides the stewardship of the collection, from the framing to the installation of the art in our offices around the world, there’s also something that we refer to as activations—what are we doing with the art beyond hanging them on the wall? A big focus [for us] has been about sharing the collection more widely with the bigger public,” says Rozell. “[And we do this through the exhibitions and commissions] at the public art space in New York, which opened in 2019, as well as UBS Lounges globally. We also make regular loans to museums and cultural institutions, as well as produce art publications.”
