Julius Baer, established in Zurich in 1890, is the leading Swiss wealth management group and an icon of Swiss banking tradition. For nearly as long, the founder family has been engaged in supporting visual and performing arts and in 1981, on the initiative of Hans J. Bär (1927-2011), the company began to build its own collection of contemporary art, guided by a firm belief that art in a business environment enhances the culture of discussion and is inspirational to employees and clients alike. Today, the Julius Baer Art Collection comprises more than 5,000 works in a range of media painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video-by Swiss artists, internationally renowned ones as well as emerging talents.


This book offers a survey of the collection that is on rotating display at the bank's offices around the world and highlights its origins and development over the past four decades. Artistic positions of 35 contemporary Swiss artists, such as John M Armleder, Silvia Bächli, Miriam Cahn, Lutz & Guggisberg, Markus Raetz, Shirana Shahbazi, and Roman Signer, are introduced through brief texts and illustrated with some 300 works from the collection.