Building bridges between art and community: consultant Joan Warren-Grady lets hoteliers check in to great artwork

Art Business News, May, 2004 by Debbie Hagan

Joan Warren-Grady has an eye for art, a mind for numbers and instincts for space and proportion. As a hotel art consultant and buyer, she knows where to find good artists and how to inspire them to create the right work for the right site. A math whiz too, she's able to juggle costs and stay on budget. This makes her the go-to art consultant among hoteliers.

Based in San Diego, Warren-Grady has been a hotel art consultant for 20 years, and she works today under the banner of Joan Warren Grady Art Advisory. Her mission is to help hotels create cohesive collections that flow naturally between their sites and their communities.

That's one of the reasons Millennium Partners, owners and developers of the Ritz-Carlton hotels and the Pour Seasons Hotels and Resorts, hired Warren-Grady to assemble art collections for its eight new hotels.

The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park has been converted into a sparkling grand hotel with European styling and an art collection meant to capture New York's stylish, sophisticated art scene. Warren-Grady did this by using local art. It's the common thread running throughout her collections.

Coming up with just the right artists and right images can be a daunting task. For this reason, she befriends local museum curators and asks for their input. This way she's sure her collection reflects the city's best talent. In the end, Warren-Grady sees her efforts paying off when museum curators call and ask permission to bring in tours.

Here, Warren-Grady explains how she works with management to build one-of-a-kind art collections that truly welcome hotel guests into the local art scene.

With the hospitality business becoming increasingly competitive, do hoteliers look at art as a way of making their properties distinctive and attractive to niche markets?

Absolutely. Developers of hotels in all areas of the market recognize that art can set their properties apart. Whether it's a collection of contemporary art for a luxury hotel, such as the Ritz-Carlton, Battery Park, which we curated for Millennium Partners, or the creation of a fantasy through trompe l'oeil wall murals, which we commissioned for Atlantis, Paradise Island The Bahamas. Hotels recognize art is as important to guests as the service amenities and decor.

Your firm's reputation is built upon "site-responsive" art programs. Can you tell us what that means and why this is important to hotels today?

"Site responsive" means that the art needs to respond to and interact with the physical space. Architecture, art and interior design all need to work together harmoniously to make a space successful. Success is based on how the end user--the guest--experiences the space. This is why the art consultant should be brought onto the team from the beginning to work in tandem with the architect and designer.

Can you give me an example of how you have used art to respond to a hotel's specific needs or characteristics and why this has proven effective?

For each art program that we create for our clients, we first determine the hotel's target clientele. Will it be a destination hotel, or will it be a family hotel? This is critical in deciding how to approach the art program.

Again, it's all about having a dialogue with the owner, developer, architect, interior architect and interior designer. Sometimes the design concept is not obvious, especially if they're creating a fantasy environment. That's why you need to have this dialogue.

One of the growing trends in hotel art programs is to focus on the local art community. This gives guests a real sense of where they are, and it serves as a fantastic bridge to the local art community. Many of the collections that we have created have been so well received by their communities that museums have offered tours of the hotel art collection. It's a fabulous compliment to the hotel.

How do you work with hotel developers and management to select art?

Once the design direction has been set and an overall budget has been established, then it's decided who's on the art selection committee. It can be just the owner or developer or just the architect, or it can be a collaboration of many people. Next, we determine the target clientele. Then I go about researching and selecting art for that team to review, knowing the budget and space constraints. Many times this involves commissioning a particular artist for a particular space.

Next, I present selected works for the committee's review and final selection. When the time is right, and the construction is nearly complete, my team handles framing, display, installation, lighting and, finally, the unveiling.

Once the hotel has set its art budget, is there a formula for dividing how much should be spent in the public areas versus the guest rooms?

No, I don't have a formula. If you had to say a percentage, the guest rooms and suites should take up 25 to 30 percent of the overall budget--unless the budget is very small. Then it could be 50 percent. It's really about what you want to achieve. It's a puzzle with many, many parts.