As a supplement to its highly acclaimed publications devoted to the state of the global art market, Skate’s Art Market Research recently launched its latest publication entitled Skate’s Focus. In its selection of the country of Poland, regarded as a “young but innovative and quickly growing art market in central Europe,” for the pilot issue Skate’s partners with local art market specialists to present an accurate and timely view of the country’s art market from the inside. In this manner, Skate’s Focus uniquely provides a dual perspective of the selected country, namely, the “global market presence of native artists” and the “performance of the country’s domestic art market.” The leading Polish magazine devoted to art, Art&Business Magazine, teams up with Skate’s for the current report in the inaugural issue of Skate’s Focus.
The current report of Skate’s Focus is organized into two parts. In the first part, Skate’s provides an overview of the Polish art market from a global perspective and devotes this part to several native artists, including Tamara de Lempicka, Roman Opalka, Henryk Siemiradzki, Piotr Uklanski, and Max Weber. In the second part, Skate’s highlights Poland’s local market along with a detailed overview of the country’s auction trading. This second part includes a wealth of information, such as annual turnover figures since 1990 to present, background of the leading local auction houses, geographical distribution of auction trading, investment performance of the country’s art, key artists on the market, and the price structure of the country’s art pursuant to various criteria.
Skate’s Focus concludes that one of the “most striking features” of Poland’s art market is the significant separation between those artists who represent the country on a global scale and those local artists who are active nearly exclusively at Polish auctions. It is very rare for artists who have achieved international acclaim and monetary appreciation to have their respective works auctioned in their home country, rather such works are traded at the big international auction houses, namely, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. For the locally established artists who have not yet surpassed the domestic market and the young contemporary artists who are at the start of their careers, the Polish auction market is the typical venue where such artists’ works are actively traded.