The company bringing art to walls around the world

Patrick McCrae and his dad were having a drink in The Three Tuns in Great Abington, Cambridgeshire, when they came up with a business plan. They decided that the pub could do with a bit more art on the wall. And so ARTIQ was born. Their first customer was the Queen’s Head, Harston, but they now have a collection adorning the walls of The Three Tuns itself.

Patrick McCrae was born in Cambridge and took A-levels at Hills Road Sixth Form College in chemistry, physics, maths and history – an unlikely combination for someone who was going to rent out art. But there was an arty side to him all along. “Culture rather than just art,” says McCrae. “It’s always been part of my life.”

He started playing the piano aged three. “And I’m playing it a lot more in lockdown,” he says. His mother is an artist – a sculptor – and his grandfather was a painter. As he was growing up, he was a frequent visitor to Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, the museum of contemporary and 20th-century art.

His father, on the other hand, was in the business of buying and selling. “So I always knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial,” he says. There was also the thought in his mind that “career prospects in the arts were not great”. However, it was this thought that partly inspired him. He was conscious that creativity was seen as something of a hobby, and therefore not properly paid (unless you happen to be Damien Hirst).

McCrae thought that there ought to be a way to get artists a decent living and at the same time bring the benefits of art to the corporate world. He realised that companies, with all their office space and substantial workforce, constituted a huge potential audience. Hotels likewise all have a lot of wall space.

At the age of 21, McCrae decided to pass up the opportunity to do a masters degree and give up any notion of law or accountancy. Since he was still living in his parents’ house, the business address was his bedroom. The first pictures he rented out were works by his own mother and photographs taken by his father, thus keeping costs down. He kept himself afloat by working at the Sea Tree, a local chippy, and stacking shelves at Waitrose. He would cycle to Cambridge Business Park to sell his wares. He was doing everything himself, including framing pictures and installing them.

Eventually he moved to London and started employing other people. To begin with, it was just prints, since that was all he could afford. “Now we offer everything, lots of original art, including monumental sculptures. But the years in Cambridge were my sandpit. I made lots of mistakes but the local business community – especially the St John’s Innovation Centre – was very supportive.”

We shouldn’t think of art as something esoteric and rarefied. After all, our caveman ancestors liked to paint mammoths and antelopes on their walls. According to a Parliamentary paper on “arts, health and well-being”, 82 per cent of people in this country participate in “a cultural act” of some kind. Art therapy shows that it is good for both body and soul and actually saves the NHS money.

The cultural sector adds gross value of £2bn to the British economy every year, argues McCrae. “But very few people are doing well out of art.” At the same time the Wimbledon Art Studios, that he works with, is host to 290 artists, designers, makers. He determines the price in conjunction with the artists themselves.

“People expect to pay for advice from a lawyer, or a ride in a taxi,” says McCrae. “But artists are often paid in terms of a promise of exposure. It’s like getting out a taxi and saying, ‘I’ll give you five stars’.” ARTIQ, in contrast, has paid over £5m to artists over the years. “It’s a regular income – a sustainable career.” Thanks to their support, some artists have gone from part time to full time.

ARTIQ came into being in 2009, in the middle of the last recession, and McCrae feels they are tough enough to survive the current one: “We’ve kept it lean. I’ve been risk-averse.” They have moved beyond prints on the walls of pubs into huge installations in public spaces like the Barbican and Broadgate. They have recently moved into the realm of higher education. ARTIQ commissioned Carlos Penalver – Spanish born, Hackney-based, architect-turned-artist – to create a series of murals over more than two weeks in 2019 in the LSE’s new Centre Building. Further afield ARTIQ has collaborated with an Angola energy company and McCrae has been the curator of an African arts festival.

McCrae approaches the coronavirus crisis in a public-spirited way.“There’s a lot of negativity right now – anxiety and fear.” Since they can’t instal anything anywhere at the moment, they have moved online. ARTIQ is now offering art classes for stressed-out people at home with their kids. And McCrae has found himself giving practical advice to artists on how to navigate websites in search of funding and support.

“Right now we’re looking for the fun factor,” he says. He gives as an example the V&A’s “design a wig” competition. “The arts have a huge role to play in restoring or improving people’s wellbeing,” says McCrae. “And saving our sanity. Art shows us there is light at the end of the tunnel.”