As ICEFAT enters it’s 34th year we acknowledge the loyalty of our members and this year welcomed 15 companies as inaugural members of the 20 Year Club. These companies share the distinction of having been active members of ICEFAT for two decades or longer and wear the badge of longevity with pride. We will present a profile of 20 Year Club members in coming issues. Companies featured in the issue are 3 of the 6 Founding Members : Gander & White Shipping Ltd (UK); Henri Harsch HH (Switzerland) & John Nurminen Prima Oy (Finland)

Olivier Howell with Mark Starling

Gander & White Shipping Ltd., England was founded in 1933. When G&W became one of the founding members of ICEFAT the company only had a London office. Over the last three decades they have opened offices in New York, Paris, West Palm Beach, Miami and in 2009 a new office was opened in San Francisco. The company originally provided services to private clients but it rapidly grew to assist museums, antique dealers and galleries in both the Old Master and contemporary fields. G&W has always believed that constant investment is needed to stay ahead of the game and in 2007 they embarked on their most adventurous project with the construction of their new Museum storage facility in London. This facility achieved a 98% score rate from the AXA-Art GRASP survey, to our knowledge, and to date this is the highest score of all the facilities inspected worldwide.

The company is still owned by the White family. When I asked Patrick White about the company’s membership of ICEFAT he had this to say : “Gander & White has always tried to play an active part in ICEFAT and I have encouraged my staff to become involved, whether it has been on Sub-Committees or on the Steering Committee. It isn’t always easy to fit this involvement into the normal workday however, several staff members have stepped up to the challenge over the years. We look forward to continuing this working relationship for many years to come.”

Henri Harsch HH SA, Switzerland

Gerard Kohler with Mark Starling

Henri Harsch HH S.A., The Art of Moving, was founded in 1957 by Henri Harsch and in 1973, Henri’s son, Bertrand
(the current CEO), joined the company. The company is
extremely proud to be a founding member of ICEFAT. “I am honored to have been able to serve on the Steering Committee.” said Bertrand Harsch when I spoke with him recently. “It is amazing to see ICEFAT grow from it’s humble beginning to the influential organization it istoday with almost 80 member companies and more applying to join each year.”

Harsch started in business handling fine art for galleries and over the years it has developed it’s Fine Arts department and also diversified in other services equiring the same know-how and personal dedication. The company works extensively with the large expatriate community employed by the many multinational companies found in Geneva and Switzerland.

The company built a large warehouse in 1973, dedicated to fine arts. This was enlarged once more in 2009 and now has a total fine arts storage capacity of over 4,000 square meters, fully secured with the most sophisticated techniques.

The Fine Arts Manager, Mr. Gérard Kohler, who has a Division staff of over 25 people says
“We have diversified in many ways over the years but the Fine Art Division remains our core activity. On 3 June 2010 we are inaugurating our brand new building which more than doubles our office and storage capacities.”

John Nurminen Prima OY, Finland

Juha Määttä with Mark Starling

John Nurminen Prim Oy, Finland is a member of the John
Nurminen Group with roots going back to 1886. Art handling and shipping have been part of John urminen’s business since the 1970’s and the company has been an ICEFAT member since the very first meeting in 1977.
According to Juha Määttä, President of Nurminen “We
have been there from the start and we will always be committed members of ICEFAT. It is important that our industry can get together and agree on standards”.

In response to a real need in the fine art and Museum community Nurminen opened an office dedicated to fine art transportation Moscow in the late 1990’s. Now John Nurminen Prima LLCis a well established fine art logistics company in Russia with a customs broker license, which
enables them to fully handle all customs clearance formalities for fine art shipments at Moscow Airport.

In 2001 the company’s operations were expanded to cover art conservation.

In 2008 John Nurminen Prima Oy acquired their own fine art vehicles, which are equipped with the latest advanced air-ride and climate-controlled systems and include remote alarm and GPS tracking capabilities. These fine art trucks operate in Russia, Europe and Scandinavia.

At the beginning of August 2008 the Gerlach Group and John Nurminen Prima Oy joined
under a single brand and now have operations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Finland, Russia, Ukraine and China.

All John Nurminen Prima’s services have been awarded a quality certificate conforming to
ISO 9001:2008.