A perfectly safe investment

Katarzyna Dębek: When you first started buying works of art did you treat it as a form of investment?

Wojciech Fibak: Very often people suggest that my collection is just an investment, but that is not entirely true. It is a mixture of these factors. The investment aspect for me is more important when I buy even the most beautiful and historic buildings or mansions. When investing in real estate, one thinks of the return on capital you can get, one wonders if it's a good location, etc. But when I buy a painting, it's more of an art connoisseur's decision. When I see an excellent work by an outstanding artist I may buy it and if, at the same time, it's a good investment and its price may go up, then it's only great.

But you weren't always an art connoisseur. Who did you ask for advice and who helped you to choose the right piece?

I still ask for advice, even though I have now allegedly become an expert and believe me it's hard work - one has to visit art galleries, meet artists in their studios, go to auctions, look at thousands of paintings, read the catalogues at night, and still one always has to ask other people's opinion. Usually, people who achieved success in business think that judging an outstanding artist is easy but it's not. When I buy Polish modern art, I usually turn to the top-five art dealers, who are also collectors themselves. Interestingly, artists are not the right people to ask for advice as they usually know their own creations best. I've been to many artists' studios but when I talked to Warhol, Basquiat, Jasper Jones, few of them really knew the art world, they knew the history of course but what they know and feel best is their own works.

Do you remember the first painting you bought?

Of course. I bought an abstract paining in a gallery in Poznań, my home town, when I was 19, it was in 1979. I bought it with money I saved from tennis. But the first serious purchases were Piotr Michałowski's Portrait of a Jew, [Tadeusz] Makowski's Mardi Gras and Eugeniusz Zak's Le Pelegrin. During my tennis career I also bought graphics by Henry Moore, [Ferdinand] Legere and Matisse.

You sometimes sell your paintings as well. How do you make such a decision?

I didn't for a long time, it's hard for me to part with my works but then I started buying more Polish modern art and paying what others consider excessive sums for those paintings, but what I consider a bargain compared to world prices. I had to sell part of my collection - some 19th century and Ecole de Paris works.

I'm perceived as a collector who evolved from 19th century paintings, through Ecole de Paris towards Polish contemporary art. Even though I like the works of Maciejowski, Sasnal and the young generation of artists, I'm still more of a classics lover. My top-five artists, as I like to call them, are Lebenstein, Kantor, Fangor, Gierowski and Nowosielski - all of them born in the 1920s.

What hangs in your house? Do you change the paintings often?

I change very rarely but it's mostly contemporary art in Monaco and in the Alps. It's mainly Polish contemporary art in Warsaw - on one floor it's contemporary art and on the other it's Ecole de Paris.

When someone wants to buy a piece of art or start a collection and asks for your advice what do you usually say?

Not many actually ask. It's quite surprising. Whenever I was in Shafrazi gallery and Mick Jagger came, or Naomi Campbell, they kept asking me questions. In Poland people don't ask. I don't know why. But I think it will change with the next generation.

But what I really want to stress is that Polish art is really not expensive. The prices of real estate in Poland have reached world levels, it costs cost more than in Berlin. Cars cost the same or more than in Belgium. The only thing that really stands out and is really inexpensive is art. I can't believe banks, insurance companies and other succesful big companies haven't seized the opportunity.

Over 20 years I've lived in New York and Paris, I keep a close eye on the financial, real-estate and art markets and art has been the best investment. Art beats everything, even if one compares it with the profits from buying real estate in the hottest places in New York or London. I bought a Basquiat in 1989 for $150,000 [zł.470,280], today it's worth $3 [zł.9.4] million. I bought Nowosielski's painting in the early 1980s for $2,000-3,000 [zł.6,270-9,406], today, it's worth $70,000 [zł.219,465]. Around the world art is a popular investment but in Poland it still needs to be discovered. People are still very careful about investing in it even though, I believe, it's perfectly safe, the maintenance is easy, plus it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to buy it, to live with it, to look at it.