Corporate art - Erika King, marketing of companies collage

Nation's Business, Nov, 1989 by Donald Bacon

Corporate Art

It's wonderful how our lives lead us to what we want to do," says artist Erika King, whose innovative collages hang in corporate lobbies and executive suites across America.

King creates and sells corporate art that tells a story. She takes photos, clippings, ads, and other images, lays them out on canvas, then brings them all together with painting to produce a panoramic impression of a company's history, role, or location.

Bank of America, USAir, Burger King, C.I.T. Financial, G.D. Searle, and Texaco are only a few of King's customers.

Spread across the floor of her Miami studio recently were the raw materials for her latest composition--a collage for the American Express Co.'s Latin American headquarters in Coral Gables, Fla.

Since 1975, some 150 firms have commissioned her to produce collages incorporating an endless assortment of company memorabilia, ranging from old product labels and magazine ads to employee snapshots and faded newspaper cuttings. King's medium can accommodate almost anything that can be readily glued to stretched canvas.

King, who was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Europe when her father's work took her parents there, says she fell into her unusual business through a series of coincidences. While living as a budding artist in Europe, she happened to see a collage by artist Robert Rauschenberg. "I said, `That's what I want to do.'" Later, by chance, she met a collage specialist who taught her the technical side of the art. Still later, she returned to the U.S., where she mingled with architects and interior designers for commercial projects. "That's when I came up with the idea for collages that tell company stories," she recalls.

As it is for many another artist, marketing is the toughest part of her business. King has proved better at it than many of her colleagues.

"I do a lot of networking," she says. "I go to office openings and stay in touch with a lot of my friends in the building business--lawyers, bankers, and so on. I find those social contacts are important. I also stay in touch with my art dealers and visit the dealers in New York two or three times a year."

About one-third of King's business comes from her own contacts with corporations, she says. "I have done a lot of pounding on doors. I'm very persistent. My latest project took six years to land. I've been working on one company for 10 years. These things take time. Periodically, I pick up the phone and call them again."

King believes that to expand her business, she must broaden her reputation nationally. She has been working at that, too.

A couple of years ago, she bought a mailing list of corporations that are known to collect art. She sent each company a brochure, cover letter, and resume. "Very little response," she recalls.

She next hired a public-relations firm to secure national media exposure. When that too proved disappointing, she let the contract lapse. Although her collages have appeared in national magazines such as Playboy and have adorned the covers of annual reports of major corporations, King confides that she has "never had an article about what I do in a national publication." Now she has.

PHOTO : In the collage behind her, artist Erika King tried to capture the excitement of the Miami

PHOTO : Grand Prix for the event's producer, Miami Motorsports.