Art market value up by 30% in 2020

The value of works of art achieved at auctions, which changed owners last year, was record-breaking, not only in Poland. This market has proved not only to be immune to the pandemic but has actually grown stronger. The temptation to invest in such a growing industry is strong, but experts advise that works of art should complement the portfolio, and inexperienced investors recommend starting with auctions with lower values.

“In times of economic uncertainty, works of art are a very good investment. Putting it colloquially and very simply, in a crisis, someone always gets poorer and then sells works of art. But there are also those who get richer during the crisis, so there is movement in the art market,” Michał Bolka from Desa Unicum said.

The uncertain situation in the markets caused by the pandemic means that it is not known how the fate of shares and bonds will unfold. Also, real estate, so liked by Poles, is a questionable investment at the moment, because apartment prices are still high and rental prices have fallen. In this situation, many investors are looking for alternative ways to invest. Works of art are one of the possibilities.

“It is all an individual matter of what rates of return will appear. In the art market, we see some kind of fashion, trends. It sometimes happens that a painting bought a few or a dozen years ago for several thousand is now worth a dozen or even several dozen thousand zlotys because a given artist has become fashionable. Our observations show that for over 30 years, that is, from the very beginning of the Polish art market, the prices of paintings have been constantly increasing,” the representative of Desa Unicum described.

According to the Artinfo portal, in 2020 the value of the Polish art market amounted to PLN 380.4 million compared to PLN 294.9 million in 2019. This is an increase of over PLN 85 million – the largest in history. A total of 467 auctions were conducted, at which almost 22,000 objects were auctioned. The painting "M22" by Wojciech Fangor, painted in 1969, turned out to be the most expensive work of contemporary art and the most expensive in the history of the Polish market. The buyer paid over PLN 7.3 million for it.

(Newseria)