Recording the human face in art is a long-held tradition, from the Roman Bust to the 15th-century Dutch painting. The portrait signals power, prestige and wealth. Corporations have also used portraits to depict their leaders. For example, UK retail banks have been collecting images of their founders and chairmen since the 18th century. These paintings remain on proud display in London head offices.
For a company, the portrait provides a public face and identity to an impersonal institution. But portraits can also reveal interesting trends and attitudes towards appearances. The research I carried out on portraits with my colleague Victoria Barnes revealed some interesting results.
One article published in the journal, Enterprise and Society, analysed the commissioning of bank managers portraits in the early 19th century. The research showed that, from a very early stage, newly formed joint-stock banks realised the value of such artworks and used them to successfully create a corporate identity and signal their place in the market.
Another article, published in the Journal of Management and Organisational History, examined how Lloyds Bank began collecting portraits of past bank chairmen in the 1960s and put them on display in their head offices. One thing that stood out to us in this research is the changing patterns in men’s facial whiskers over the decades. Recent fashion has embraced all forms of facial hair, but it has not always been so well accepted.
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