From the outset, the DaimlerChrysler Collection was more than just the idea of providing some visual furniture for the group. In fact the collection has developed over the years to become a vital part of the organization, committed to art and culture and a dialogue with various departments.

The collection started in 1977. Since then the holdings have grown to about 1,400 works by about 300 German and international artists. All the works are shown on the company's sites and the items on display change constantly. The collection represents an important spectrum of major 20th century art developments and pictorial ideas, right down to the present day. It also contains about thirty sculptures, some realized in co-operation with the artists for company sites and also for public places.

The first, essentially pictorial thrust in the collection related to artists from South Germany, teachers and pupils from the Stuttgart Academy like Adolf Hölzel, Oskar Schlemmer, Willi Baumeister and the Swiss artists Hans Arp and Max Bill. The common feature was their artistically motivated interest in an interdisciplinary dialogue between fine art, functional product design, architecture and graphic design after the Bauhaus. The DaimlerChrysler Collection is still committed to this exploratory artistic thinking, thinking that is always directed at people, their imaginations and their ability to innovate. Product related, commissioned works form another part of our collection, ranging from the famous „Cars“ serie by Andy Warhol (1986), to a group of large drawings by Robert Longo (1992-95) as well as works by Simone Westerwinter and Sylvie Fleury.

The DaimlerChrysler Collection was able to develop a clear profile that was also sound in art-historical terms because of the systematic build-up and the concentrated focus on content relating to abstract-constructive, conceptual and minimalist positions. The international public has followed further development attentively since the collection opened its own galleries, DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, in Haus Huth in Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. New art acquisitions are presented in Berlin at temporary thematic shows, and brought into a dialogue with holdings from our own collection and also with works from important private ones. The exhibitions are accompanied by cata-logues with lucid and probing work analyses. From 2003 to 2006, 200 works from the DaimlerChrysler Collection are going on a world tour of major museums in Germany, America, South Africa and Asia.