the collection is available at their website:www.
lasalle.com.
Microsoft Collection
The computer giant Microsoft began collecting art
in 1987, when the company only occupied six build-
ings in Redmond, Washington. Today the collec-
tion represents mostly contemporary artists in
many different media. Microsoft began collecting
art to put in their offices to represent the idea of a
contemporary corporation, as well as to educate
customers and employees. The collection currently
holds over 4,000 works (not including the over 20
million photographic images purchased as part of
the Bettmann Archives by Corbis) and is housed in
more than 90 buildings throughout North Amer-
ica. As the company continues to grow, so does the
collection. The collection currently holds over 750
photographs by more than 200 artists, approxi-
mately 20% of the entire collection.
The photographs in the collection are all twen-
tieth-century and with an emphasis on post-war
and contemporary photographers, and represent a
broad range of photographic media, such as
photomontages, digital prints, and photo trans-
fers. Some of the artists represented include
Cindy Sherman, Laura Larson, Eva Schlegel, and
Louis Stettner. There are many American artists,
as well as artists from around the world, including
Mexico, China, Brazil, Cuba, and Japan. Works
from the collection are often loaned to institu-
tions, such as the Art Museum at the University
of Washington, and the collection is shown in
many traveling exhibitions. In addition to exhibi-
tions, the company also hosts educational pro-
grams for the general public. More information
on the collection is available at their website:
http://www.microsoft.com.
The Polaroid Collection
Polaroid began hiring photographers to test their
new instant films in the late 1940s, beginning with
Ansel Adams. The company trusted that the opi-
nions of artists would give a point of view from the
field, rather than the lab. In the 1950s and 1960s,
many more photographers were hired in addition
to Adams, including Paul Caponigro, William
Clift, John Benson, and Nick Dean. In the late
1960s, the company began acquiring the works
that the photographers made during the field
tests. Simultaneously, in Europe, the company
was acquiring the works of David Bailey, Sarah
Moon, Helmut Newton, and Josef Sudek, begin-
ning the International Polaroid Collection.
The two separate collections were combined in
1990 and the complete collection now holds more
than 23,000 images by over 1,000 different artists,
and is the most diversified collection of original
Polaroid instant images. The collection is housed
in Waltham, Massachusetts, and many of the
works have been added to the permanent archives
of such museums as La Maison Europe ́enne de la
Photographie in Paris and Le Muse ́e de l’Elyse ́ein
Lausanne, Switzerland.
The company continues to give grants to artists
to test its films in exchange for providing images to
the collection. Under the supervision of long-time
curator Barbara Hitchcok, parts of the collection
are frequently exhibited around the world, and the
corporation produces books and catalogues on its
collection and artists represented in the collection.
More information on the collection is available at
their website:www.polaroid.com.Safeco Collection
Safeco, an insurance company, began collecting art
for their Pacific Northwest offices in 1973. Their
idea was to enrich the workplace while supporting
local artists. The collection focuses on contempor-
ary art with a strong local presence and holds over
2,600 works located in over 70 offices in Washing-
ton and across the United States. Within the col-
lection is a significant holding of over 500
photographs by 100 artists. The photography col-
lection is quite diverse, having works by many well
known artists like Eliot Porter, Berenice Abbott,
and Imogen Cunningham, and also including well-
regarded Northwest regional artists such as Mar-
sha Burns and Arthur Aubry. The collection also
has several early works, including the work by
Myra Albert Wiggens, which dates back to 1898.
More information on the collection is available at
their website:www.safeco.com.Seagram Collection
The Seagram Company began collecting art in the
late 1950s after their landmark building was
erected on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Phyllis
Lambert, daughter of Samuel Bronfman, the foun-
der of the company, along with photographer
Richard Pare, were the principal curators of the
collection until the 1980s. In 1972, they began col-
lecting photography. The collection as a whole was
put together to adorn the building’s executiveCORPORATE COLLECTIONS