John Baldessari

UBS Art Collection
© John Baldessari 1988. Courtesy Estate of John Baldessari © 2021

John Baldessari’s conceptual works feature photography and appropriated images. If This Then That (1988) illustrates his technique of bringing pictorial fragments together to create a new sense of the unexpected, while highlighting the interconnectedness of people, places, things and ideas. It features elements of Baldessari’s characteristic approach, including a color-coded system. The circles atop each group of silhouetted figures correspond to the diminishing planets at the base of the composition, alluding to the relationship between the universe, the individual and the group.


United States

New York

UBS Art Collection

Photography

If This Then That

Philip Guston

UBS Art Collection
© <link="https://philipguston.org/home" ><color=blue>The Estate of Philip Guston</color></link>, courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Philip Guston achieved success in the 1950s for his Abstract Expressionist works. In the late 1960s, he returned to the representational style of his youth, creating a personal iconography of cartoonish shapes. Artist in His Studio (1969) is an example of Guston’s renewed interest in figuration. It is an enigmatic self-portrait of the artist at work, with his face concealed by a hood, a recurring motif in many of his compositions at the time.



Drawing

Artist in His Studio

Alighiero Boetti

UBS Art Collection
© 2021, ProLitteris, Zurich

Alighiero Boetti's most well-known works are embroidered maps of the world such as Mappa del Mondo (1978). Traveling to Afghanistan in the early 1970s, Boetti was introduced to the traditional craft of embroidery. This work was embroidered by local Afghani women in about two years according to Boetti's concept and instructions. It shows a standard map of the world with countries represented by their national flags rather than traditional cartographic colors. 


Textile Art

Mappa del Mondo

Susan Rothenberg

UBS Art Collection
© 2021, ProLitteris, Zurich

Susan Rothenberg’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (1988) were begun as studies for oil on wood panels. The panels were commissioned by Don Marron for the top floor of the PaineWebber building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas.  Rothenberg chose an unexpected location – ten feet high piers between the windows in the dining room. She created six works, one for each pillar, depicting dancing figures. Each performs a different movement—spinning, turning, and posing.

Rothenberg considered the drawings works in their own right and finished them after the paintings.


1,2,3,4,5,6

Dorothea Lange

UBS Art Collection
© The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor

One of the most fascinating components of today’s UBS Art Collection is a sub-collection of photographs assembled by John Szarkowski, the former Director of Photography at MoMA, who has been recognized as responsible for defining photography as a fine art medium. Don Marron invited Szarkowski to assemble a collection for PaineWebber. The Szarkowski Collection of approximately 300 photographs includes images depicting land use. Some of the most celebrated names in modern photography are represented.

Tractored Out, Childress County, Texas, c. 1935

Robert Gober

UBS Art Collection
© Robert Gober, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

Robert Gober creates banal everyday objects, including simple and carefully crafted sculptures of playpens, beds and doors, that evoke empty spaces and memories. His series on sinks, produced both as objects and drawings, exemplifies his unique approach that questions the nature of representation. Although they remain immediately recognizable, the sinks lack all practical features and any contextual references.

Untitled

Martin Kippenberger

UBS Art Collection
© Estate of Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne

Martin Kippenberger created Untitled (Hotel Ritz, Madrid) as a tribute to fellow German artist, Joseph Beuys, who had died three years prior to its execution.  Beuys’ work is represented by the sculpture depicted. This drawing is one of many sketched on countless hotel letterhead papers, which the artist collected during his travels.

Untitled (Hotel Ritz, Madrid)

UBS Art Collection
© Estate of Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne

Martin Kippenberger created this drawing as a tribute to fellow German artist, Joseph Beuys, who had died three years prior to its execution. At the bottom right of Untitled (Kastens Hotel Luisenhof) (1989), Kippenberger wrote “Wie hat Beuys das gemeint?” [What did Beuys mean by this], a question that refers to the public's often flawed interpretation of Beuys’ work, which is represented by the sculpture depicted. This drawing is one of many sketched on countless hotel letterhead papers, which the artist collected during his travels.

Untitled (Kastens Hotel Luisenhof)

Andreas Gursky

UBS Art Collection
© Andreas Gursky/Courtesy Sprüth Magers / 2021, ProLitteris, Zurich

Andreas Gursky’s photographs are distinctive for their critical look at the effect of capitalism and globalization on contemporary life. 99 Cent (1999/2016) reveals a temple of consumerism. The copiously stacked shelves of the supermarket, which are reflected in the ceiling, seem to continue far beyond the limits of the frame. The few customers, are dwarfed by the variety of goods on offer and merge into the background. Due to the abundance of detail, the scene becomes almost purely abstract and ornamental.
  


Print

99 Cent

Ed Ruscha

UBS Art Collection
© Ed Ruscha. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian

Fifty-six paintings, works on paper and prints now in the UBS Art Collection span the first four decades of Ed Ruscha’s career and include some of his most seminal images. With his deadpan, West Coast attitude and wry sense of humor, Ruscha adds a more conceptual edge to Pop art. Since the late 1950s, words and phrases have played a central role in his practice. Exploration of fonts and typography are evidence of his early training in the advertising industry. He also experimented with unexpected materials including gunpowder, Vaseline and organic substances.


Year After Year

John Currin

UBS Art Collection
© John Currin

Rachel Reclining (2001), like many of John Currin’s compositions, was inspired by the works of the art historical masters. Both from the stylistic and technical points of view, references to the preparatory studies of painters of the past are evident. This drawing depicts the wife of the artist, whom Currin frequently uses as a model, and it relates to his 2001 painting Nude on a Table.

Rachel Reclining

Lucian Freud

The UBS Art Collection has many treasures and notable pockets of depth, including the fifty-four works by the acclaimed artist Lucian Freud that were featured in exhibitions at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark in 2015 and the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany in 2017 with accompanying exhibition catalogues.

This body of work—which includes the majority of the artist’s late etchings, one watercolor, and two paintings—was originally assembled over the course of thirteen years by Don Marron. 

Head and Shoulders of a Girl

Naked Man on a Bed

Woman with an Arm Tattoo

UBS Art Collection
© Lucian Freud Archive/ Bridgeman Images

The UBS Art Collection has many treasures and notable pockets of depth, including the fifty-four works by the acclaimed artist Lucian Freud that were featured in exhibitions at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark in 2015 and the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany in 2017 with accompanying exhibition catalogues.

This body of work—which includes the majority of the artist’s late etchings, one watercolor, and two paintings—was originally assembled over the course of thirteen years by Don Marron. 

Large Sue (Benefits Supervisor Sleeping)

Darius Kinsey

UBS Art Collection 

One of the most fascinating components of today’s UBS Art Collection is a sub-collection of photographs assembled by John Szarkowski, the former Director of Photography at MoMA, who has been recognized as responsible for defining photography as a fine art medium. Don Marron invited Szarkowski to assemble a collection for PaineWebber. The Szarkowski Collection of approximately 300 photographs includes images depicting land use. Some of the most celebrated names in modern photography are represented.

Cedar Stump House, 20 feet in diameter

Harry Callahan

UBS Art Collection
© The Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace Gallery

One of the most fascinating components of today’s UBS Art Collection is a sub-collection of photographs assembled by John Szarkowski, the former Director of Photography at MoMA, who has been recognized as responsible for defining photography as a fine art medium. Don Marron invited Szarkowski to assemble a collection for PaineWebber. The Szarkowski Collection of approximately 300 photographs includes images depicting land use. Some of the most celebrated names in modern photography are represented.

Cape Cod 1972

William Eggleston

UBS Art Collection
© Eggleston Artistic Trust. Courtesy Eggleston Artistic Trust and David Zwirner

One of the most fascinating components of today’s UBS Art Collection is a sub-collection of photographs assembled by John Szarkowski, the former Director of Photography at MoMA, who has been recognized as responsible for defining photography as a fine art medium. Don Marron invited Szarkowski to assemble a collection for PaineWebber. The Szarkowski Collection of approximately 300 photographs includes images depicting land use. Some of the most celebrated names in modern photography are represented.

Gilbert & George

UBS Art Collection
© Gilbert & George, courtesy the artist

Gilbert & George, the iconic artistic partnership, have evolved a way of making art in which they give shape to their unique interpretation of the modern world. Invariably we find the figures of the artists contemplating or confronting the decadent beauty and complexity of the everyday world in which we all live.

The artist Louise Lawler photographed this work installed in the PaineWebber office at 1285 Avenue of the Americas in Fifteenth Floor (1993 – 1996).


Mixed Media

MAD GARDEN

UBS Art Collection
© The Lucian Freud Archive / Bridgeman Images

Double Portrait (1988-90) depicts one of Lucian Freud’s regular sitters, Susanna Chancellor, together with the Freud’s beloved family pet, Pluto the dog. There are small signs that indicate the many hours of stillness required when posing for Freud. The tension between the two subjects as well as the artist as observer is tangible – the sitter is in a rather awkward and uncomfortable pose, her right hand applying a little pressure to keep Pluto still, while Pluto’s paws give the sense that he might attempt to flee at any moment. 


Painting

Double Portrait

“Assembling any collection is complicated and takes time, but building a contemporary collection is even more complex. There is neither wisdom of the ages to define taste and style for new art, nor extensive reference material; there is only evolving scholarship and one’s personal response to the work. That, of course is one of the most exciting aspect of collecting contemporary art —it is the art of one’s own era.”

On view is a selection of artworks spanning four decades that highlight the Collection’s unique heritage and celebrate the art collection of PaineWebber, which now forms an integral part of the UBS Art Collection. As CEO of PaineWebber, which was acquired by UBS in 2000, Donald B. Marron was a singular figure in the corporate art landscape during the 1980s and 1990s. His endless zeal, refined eye, and appetite for risk resulted in what came to be known as one of the most distinguished corporate collections ever assembled. 

The works from the former PaineWebber Collection present a time capsule revealing a “Who’s Who” of artists of the downtown New York art scene. They recall a period when it was possible to have an overview of the art market, a time when the business of collecting contemporary art was as straightforward as regular Saturday afternoon trips to the galleries and artist studios in SoHo. The exhibition includes abstract and figurative works by these artists as well as their European peers and spans Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Pictures Generation and Neo-Expressionism.

The UBS Art Collection consists of approximately 30,000 works from the 1960s to the present by some of the world's most significant artists. It is comprised of various individual art collections with distinct attributes that have been integrated over time as various firms became part of UBS. The Art of One’s Own Era is on view in a virtual recreation of the UBS Art Gallery at 1285 Avenue of the Americas, the former PaineWebber building. The UBS Art Gallery is a public arts space that provides an opportunity to discover works from the UBS Art Collection and special rotating exhibitions.

The Art of One's Own Era