The success of the Lenz collection of Zero art at Sotheby’s in London has put new emphasis on Sotheby’s Amsterdam sale of the Peter Stuyvesant Collection, according to the Wall Street Journal:
What started small grew year after year into the renowned Peter Stuyvesant Collection, now the BATartventure Collection that today boasts more than 1,000 works from artists in some 40 countries. They include France’s dramatic, humorous and colorful sculptress Niki de Saint Phalle; Italy’s creator of striking geographic landscapes Alighiero Boetti; and the nail pictures of Germany’s Zero movement artist Gunther Uecker. Mr. Uecker’s white nail creation “Hair of the Nymphs” (1964) sold for £825,250 at Sotheby’s benchmark contemporary-art sale in London on Feb. 10, far above the estimate of £100,00-£150,000.
On March 8, Sotheby’s in Amsterdam will offer 163 works from the collection, now owned by British American Tobacco Netherlands. (British American Tobacco took control of the extensive corporate collection after the merger in 1999 of BAT and Rothmans International PLC, to which Turmac belonged.) The vast factory in Zevenaar, where the paintings hung dramatically from overhead ducts and rafters, closed in 2008, leaving the art without a home.
Colorful Art, From Factory to Auction (Wall Street Journal)
