Good art can be found in some of the most unexpected places: your doctor’s office, your bank, or even your local restaurant or supermarket. Small and medium-size businesses are climbing aboard the corporate art train, joining such monied moguls as Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Bank of America, and Sak’s Fifth Avenue.

In last century, corporate art was considered as sell-your-soul commercial art. Many fine artists avoided corporate commissions as if they represented the death knells of their careers. As artists began to see large corporations acquire fine art from the masters of the art world, they began to understand that corporations were using art, not to tout their products, but to greet clients and to enhance the work environment of their employees. Corporate art became an investment for companies and a way to project a business image.

It is also a means for businesses to remind their customers, as well as their employees, that they value creativity and originality. That is why many corporate art collections are comprised of new, emerging artists or innovative, more well-known experimentalists such as Jackson Pollack or Gary Passanise.

In well-funded art collections, companies can afford to buy two-dimensional art in a variety of media, including photographs. They also buy sculpture, rare maps, pottery, and fine crafts like glass and tapestries.

Part II of this article will give you some examples of fine art owned by some of America's finest companies.