[fross]

While the catalog at Sotheby's does not appear, but very interesting history of the emergence of the collection itself, now owned by British American Tobacco (BAT).
In the late 50-ies, Alexander Orlov, Managing Director Turmac Tobacco in the Netherlands, decided to use his passion for contemporary art for production purposes. Then work on the assembly line became more and more monotonous and he decided to raise the spirit of the staff hung over the machine works by contemporary artists.
In 1960, Orlov, invited 13 artists from different European countries to create paintings for the production departments, in the spirit "" Joie de vivre "". Each work had to be large in size, bright colors and stand out in a big noisy factory halls. For many artists it was a completely new experience. Employees expect a surprise when the paintings were installed at night in their absence. First, it makes them distrust, but after six months, officials even expressed a preference for abstract works. This was the beginning of the collection of Peter Stuivezenta.
By 1961, it became clear that was supposed to be the guiding hand in choosing what should be added to the collection. Orlov appointed consistently highly respected advisers in the museum world and gave them all a wish and the freedom of choice. The criteria for collection were:
 - Work should be large in size,
 - Bold in the images
 - Artists must be from around the world

The first advisor was appointed Vilem Sandberg, first Director of the Museum Steydelik in Amsterdam and then Renild Hemmaker van den Breynd, first chief curator of contemporary art at the Museum van Boymense Beunindzhene in Rotterdam, then Wim Biiren, first Director of the Museum Steydelik in Amsterdam, and the last time Martin Sanders, first Director of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (until 2006).

Over the past 50 years, the collection has expanded and gained worldwide recognition thanks to the help of these first-class advisers, becoming an extremely high-quality, diverse and international collection of art, which represents artists from Europe, the United States, China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa.

Initially, the focus was on the Cobra painters Karel Appel, Constant, as well as other artists, such as Alechinsky, Poliakoff, Matta and other Expressionists, active in the 50th and 60th. Later the collection was expanded to include representatives of such movements as the Analytic Art, New Realism, poor art, color field painting and more recent movements such as the New Wild.

At Sotheby's in Amsterdam will exhibit 164 works from more than 1000 members of the collection. Here are some photos of them and how they looked in the shops of the tobacco factory.