ING in the United Kingdom has been associated with Discerning Eye since 1999 initially through Charterhouse Securities Ltd which it acquired in 2000. In particular we have sponsored Discerning Eye's annual exhibition at Mall Galleries and we are delighted to be doing so again in 2002.

ING, with its headquarters in Amsterdam, is one of the world's leading financial institutions and provides a wide range of financial services to personal, corporate and institutional clients through a variety of distribution channels. INC London forms part of ING Wholesale which has 30,000 staff in 53 countries, primarily in Europe but also in the Americas and the Far East. Wholesale's services embrace investment banking, structured finance, debt products, financial markets and equity trading.

ING has a long commitment to the arts. In the Netherlands it has built up a large and widely admired collection of Dutch contemporary work which it displays widely throughout its offices and branches. A notable feature of its arts policy is that art should be easily accessible to clients and staff alike.

There is also a broad commitment to support of the arts across the world. In London, a large and distinguished collection of British art hangs in ING's offices at 60 London Wall. Originally this was the collection of Barings and was acquired by ING along with Barings' business in 1995. It contains historical works as well as eighteenth and nineteenth century watercolours and twentieth century figurative works mostly by English artists. The collection continues to grow as opportunity allows. It hangs mostly in those parts of our office building visited by clients and here it is also easily accessible to staff members.

We regard our London collection as a mark of culture and civility and we think it both challenges and gives enjoyment to those who see it. Within the restrictions imposed on us by having to operate in what, first and foremost, is a working environment, we endeavour to give interested people from outside the business access to the collection.

To this end we arrange for groups of friends of museums and galleries and members of societies and clubs to visit us in the evenings to look at our collection. More ambitiously, as opportunity has allowed, we have hosted exhibitions and held art auctions for charities especially connected with those parts of East London adjoining the City. We recently, for example, acted as hosts to an exhibition of works by the leading contemporary Norwegian artist Ornulf Opdahl. We have also lent large parts of our collection to special exhibitions in public galleries.

A spin off of our connection with Discerning Eye has been recognition from Arts & Business New Partners who made us one of their award winners for sponsorship of the Discerning Eye 2000 Exhibition. This has, inter alia, resulted in the residency of Johnny Jonas, an artist who has worked in our building and produced a series of pictures of our staff and of the environment in which they work and move. We are also award winners in respect of our 2001 sponsorship and in this we are working with Discerning Eye to arrange two community-based art exhibitions in our offices at 60 London Wall.

 

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