The Netherlands: Abstracts for Industry

THE NETHERLANDS

Alexander Orlow, 48, managing director of Holland’s Turmac Tobacco Co., has put his love for abstract art to industrial use. “However complicated the operation of a machine may look,” he says, “it soon becomes a monotonous routine to a factory worker.” Like many another industrial leader, Orlow (pronounced Orlov) figured that boredom was reflected in production figures, so he commissioned 13 painters to produce art for his plant.

He hung their works from overhead ducts and rafters throughout Turmac’s cigarette-making factory in Zevenaar, on the Dutch-German border. The first paintings were abstracts and figuratives, but it was not long before Orlow discovered that the workers tired of the latter almost as swiftly as they tired of their machines. From then on, Orlow stuck strictly to abstracts, moving them about his factory every two or three months—sometimes to the vocal displeasure of employees who had grown fond of a particular painting. At such moments, says Orlow, “I know they really love them.”

All this began six years ago. Now 200 paintings hang in the Zevenaar plant and two newer Turmac factories at Harderwijk in The Netherlands and near Zurich, Switzerland. Last month 31 of the works began a six-week showing at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in the Louvre Palace, which is a pretty good place to hang.

Turmac, which produces 5 billion cigarettes a year for distribution in 21 countries, is one of 26 cooperating tobacco companies that form the London-based Rothmans Group; its members manufacture and market each other’s cigarettes in order to eliminate inefficient competition. Several members of the Rothmans Group support the arts—young painters and symphony orchestras in Britain, contemporary sculpture and theater subsidization in Canada—but each endeavor is independent, and Turmac is the only company thus far to commission and exhibit works of art in its factories.

For Alexander Orlow, the Berlin-born son of Russian parents who fled the 1917 Revolution, assembling Turmac’s collection was a characteristic enterprise. His house in Amsterdam is laden with antiques, modern painting and objets d’art. Though he cannot claim that his factory-hung paintings have made all the difference, Orlow can certainly say that Turmac has prospered since he took over as managing director in 1952.

In that period, Turmac has increased its share of the Dutch cigarette market from 7% to 24% .