Stuyvesant collection finally under the hammer

The most important collection of modern art ever to be auctioned in Amsterdam is now on display.

Eight thousand catalogues were sent to every corner of the world and written bids are coming in from all directions. A team of experts from London and New York will come to Amsterdam to assist the local Sotheby's branch where the most important collection of modern art ever on sale in the Netherlands will be auctioned on March 8. Experts say the 163 masterpieces from the corporate collection of the Peter Stuyvesant cigarette factory could yield up to 10 million euros.

The Peter Stuyvesant collection -- or BAT Art Venture Collection, as owner British American Tobacco has dubbed it since tobacco advertising was banned -- is one of the oldest and most significant corporate collections in the Netherlands. When Peter Stuyvesant and Lucky Strike cigarettes were still rolled in a factory the town of Zevenaar in the 1960s, director Alexander Orlow decorated its walls with large, often brightly coloured works of contemporary art. Abstract art hanging over the machines, he believed, would enhance the productivity of the workers.

Key works by renowned artists

The Stuyvesant collection includes key works by renowned artists such as Karel Appel, Robert Mangold, Martin Kippenberger and Mike Kelley. The pieces are of a quality that would not be out of place in museums. Orlow owed his outstanding selection to a number of advisers he recruited. Willem Sandberg, the director of Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, advised him in the late 1950s and he later sought the expertise of Renilde Hammacher Van den Brande, the curator at Rotterdam's Boijmans Museum, and Wim Beeren, who ran both these modern art institutions in the 1970s and 1980s. Since 2001, art collector Martijn Sanders curated the collection. He had an annual budget of 200,000 euros to aquire new works.

The works bought at the advise of Beeren stand out the most, experts who know the collection said. Beeren became involved after he had left the Stedelijk in 1992. He acquired paintings by the American artist Mike Kelley, German Albert Oehlen and Erik Bulatov from Russia for the Stuyvesant collections. "Artists you would not come across in Dutch museums," said Jetske Homan van der Heide, the modern art specialist at Christie’s. She said these works also distinguish the collection from others owned by corporations in the Netherlands.

Conservative estimates

Sotheby's official estimate of the collection's value is 4 to 5 million euros, but Homan van der Heide and art dealer and appraiser Willem Baars believe it could bring in several times that. Baars said he expects the collection to yield a total of 12 million, Homan van der Heide -- "I am always careful" -- estimated the proceeds would amount to 8 million.

They pointed out several works that should bring in more than their appraised value. Four white reliefs from Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven, for example, have been appraised at around 100,000 euros each, but they are similar to a relief that yielded the record [wat voor record?] amount of 780,000 US dollars at Sotheby's in New York last month. Torse de Femme, a monumental canvas made by Karel Appel in 1964, is estimated to be worth 150,000 to 200,000. "But I don't think the old man has made them better than this one," Baars said of the Dutch avant-garde artist. "It will bring in 300,000 to 500,000 for sure."

Homan van der Heide of Christie's showed some understanding for the conservative estimates of her competitor. "By appraising carefully, you avoid forcing the market," she said. "We hit the bottom of the art market last year, and it is unclear where the new ceiling is. A good result in Amsterdam would confirm the renewed confidence in art."

Sotheby's cancelled the auction originally planned for December 2008 because of the financial crisis. At the low of the market, it did auction six masterpieces from the Stuyvesant collection in London and Hong Kong. Four works, the most notable by Chinese painter Zhang Xiagang and German artist Matthias Weischer, brought in 4.1 million euros, but the paintings by Chinese Chen Wenbo and Bulatov remained unsold.

The Stuyvesant collection is on display at Sotheby's in Amsterdam until March 7. On Wednesday, a special viewing is organised for former employees of the Zevenaar factory; their last chance to see the paintings that loomed over their work.