The Art of Fine Art Protection

Most museumgoers visiting New York City will make their way to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in pursuit of the beautiful colors and whimsical brushwork inherent to Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.” However, not Anne Rappa. Marsh McLennan Agency’s (MMA) Fine Arts and Specie Leader views art a little differently than most people. While most visitors spend their time gazing at the captivating painting, Rappa focuses her attention elsewhere. “I watch the security guards,” she says. “Usually, it’s the same guard, and he does such great work. But there are always people who are trying to take selfies and backing up toward it. It’s not an easy job, managing the crowds.”

What about artwork hanging in a corporate office building?  “Most people think, ‘Oh, how pretty are those pictures?’ But I will start looking them up to try to find out who owns the artwork—is it a corporate art collection? Is it a real estate firm? Is it the main shareholder of the real estate firm who owns the asset? Who is it that would be insuring this collection of objects?” Rappa muses. “Because of my work, I have a bit of a different lens about these kinds of things.” 

For the past year, Rappa has worked in a specially created role at MMA, developing custom solutions to keep clients’ valuables safe. She has 30 years of experience in the field of fine arts insurance, representing museum, commercial, private, and corporate collections. In other words, she has to think differently. It’s her job to figure out how to protect art—whether it’s a world-famous painting or lobby décor—so it can be enjoyed by generations to come. 

In the insurance world, the “fine art” label extends far beyond pictures. “Really, it’s anything that’s highly valuable,” Rappa explains, noting that she’s handled insurance for sculptures, rare books, maps, and manuscripts, historic memorabilia, sports memorabilia, a gem collection, and, one time, a rocket car. “Even something valuable like stained glass—a lot of people might not be aware, but stained glass can actually be added to a fine art insurance policy,” Rappa says. “Even if it’s operational as an element of real estate that’s in use, that stained glass still needs to be protected.” 

Rappa’s official client list is confidential, but she’s worked with and represented personal and private collectors, as well as art dealers, galleries, universities, museums, and cultural institutions.
 

The intersection of art and insurance

Rappa has experience representing both the owner of a piece of fine art and the party borrowing it. “I’m often either explaining art history or art protection to an insurance person, or I’m explaining insurance and providing risk advice to art-focused people,” she says. “I’m at the intersection of those communities, and I enjoy them both.” 

A lot of Rappa’s work is “very granular,” she says. “I’m often looking at protections that relate to packing and transport, logistics, and the movement of an object because that is the time when the artwork is at its most vulnerable.” Each project comes with its own unique set of considerations, from humidity levels to accessibility to figuring out what happens if a piece needs repairs but the required materials aren’t available. 

When she’s working with public sculpture that’s on display, she always recommends that the piece be put in a well-lit area in direct eyeline of security. You never know when a mischievous passerby might try to deface it—which has happened during Rappa’s career. “There was a large-scale sculpture on loan at a university campus, and someone actually carved an expletive into the sculpture,” Rappa recalls. “If only they’d used a marker. That would have been a much less expensive claim.”

Instead, this one-word carving required the huge piece to be uninstalled by riggers and transported across the country, where the paint was sandblasted off and the metal was ground down. “The paint had to be reapplied and, of course, you can’t just repaint that one area, right? You have to remove the paint from the entire sculpture and then repaint the entire sculpture,” Rappa explains. “Then you have to transport the sculpture back to the university property and reinstall it or return it to the client—wherever they choose.” 

Rappa also needs to be a skillful communicator. If there is a claim associated with the art while it is on loan, the lender will have the right to prescribe how the piece is repaired, as they might have a specific process or person they want handling the issue. In the case of the defaced sculpture, Rappa made sure the university knew exactly how the owners wanted the piece repaired. The work that goes into these kinds of projects is very specialized, she explains. Because of her dedicated, hands-on approach, both the university and the foundation that owned the sculpture were satisfied with its repair.
 

Big-picture protection

When Rappa is dealing with client art in private residences, she must consider how to protect the entire home. “We have to think about how to create a resilient envelope for the artwork to sit in,” she says, which is a job that increasingly involves considering environmental factors. 

Rappa has clients in Los Angeles who were directly impacted by the wildfires in January and others who were impacted by the smoke—which can also damage delicate artwork. “Landscaping is now a really big topic of interest for me,” she says. “You want to create a defensible space around any location.” She also looks at what kind of roof a home has, if there’s a wildfire sprinkler system installed, and the distance between nearby trees. “That can make a difference,” she says. 

Regardless of the project, Rappa approaches her work with the same vision: “If I’m actively listening to the problems that our clients come to us with, there’s always a way of managing them and finding a solution,” she says. “It’s just a matter of time, skill, and resources, and then negotiating the unique solutions for that problem into the insurance policy.”

Living in New York City, Rappa is surrounded by artwork all the time. And yes, every time she sees it, the art insurance side of her can’t help but take hold. “But then, of course, I take my own selfie with it,” Rappa says with a laugh. “My camera roll is filled with pictures of me and artwork.” 

Rappa may spend her days thinking about the risks associated with artwork; she may even walk into a room with a Van Gogh and be more inclined to look at the security guard than the painting. But she wouldn’t spend so much time thinking about how to protect fine art if she didn’t have an appreciation for it on all levels. 

“Fine art is an asset to some. It’s a cultural object for others. Visual art has always been an important way to reflect on society,” Rappa says. “Human beings always want stories, and artists have the ability to give them to us. They are the tellers of history. Their artwork is our document of what’s going on at any point in time, and we can use that artwork for future reflection and knowledge.”