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• A Chapter of Dutch Art History Ends: A Tobacco Factory Closes, Sheds its Collection  

Cigarette-maker BAT has built up an impressive collection of modern art at its factory in the Dutch town of Zevenaar over the last 50 years. The art was used to keep workers from getting bored. But now the factory is closing, the art is up for auction and many are unhappy.

Cigarette brands Peter Stuyvesant and Lucky Strike will no longer be made in the Dutch town of Zevenaar. The closure of the British American Tobacco (BAT) factory marks not only the end of a major source of employment in the area but also the final curtain for an unusual piece of Dutch art history.

At the end of the 1950s, factory director Alexander Orlow started hanging works of art among the cigarette-making machines. The workers needed something interesting to look at to stave off boredom and increase their productivity, he felt.

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