Major companies such as Akzo Nobel, DSM, ING, ABN Amro and Achmea are to drastically reduce the amount of money they spend on acquisitions for their corporate art collections because of the economic crisis, reports Tuesday’s Volkskrant.

Banks and businesses are among the biggest buyers of art in the Netherlands. The paper says the 40 companies that are members of the country’s association of corporate collections spend between €20,000 and €1m on buying and maintaining art.
Guus Broos, chairman of the Dutch galleries association, says galleries are already feeling the pinch and he is concerned about the consequences for gallery owners and artists, the paper reports.
ABN Amro and Fortis have already announced that they are no longer expanding their collections.
But companies will not say how much they invest or how much will be cut from current art budgets. ‘Most companies are scared to death to admit they are cutting back on their art budget,’ Hester Alberdink Thijm, responsible for Akzo Nobel’s collection, tells the Volkskrant.
ING, ABN Amro and Fortis have the biggest corporate art collections in Holland with respectively 25,000, 16,000 and 8,500 works in their possession, says the Volkskrant.