A market becomes real to the outside world when people can see more than ambition. They need institutions, data, names and a record they can test.
That is what changed for Poland in 2013. The second edition of the global Deloitte Luxembourg and ArtTactic Art & Finance Report gave the Polish art market its own chapter. It was not a footnote. It was Section 7: The Polish art market profile.
The chapter matters to the history of Paweł Makowski and Abbey House because it shows something bigger than a company receiving press attention. Publishing and research connected with the project became part of the evidence through which an international report explained Poland to banks, collectors, art professionals and wealth managers.
Key facts
- Report
- Art & Finance Report 2013, second edition.
- Publishers
- Deloitte Luxembourg and ArtTactic, with Deloitte Poland and Deloitte Spain joining the initiative.
- Polish chapter
- Section 7: The Polish art market profile, pages 75–78 of the report.
- Abbey House connection
- The chapter cites Art & Business Annual Volumes, an Abbey House auction-market report and describes Abbey House and the first Polish art fund.
- Historical context
- The inaugural report focused on defining the Art & Finance industry. The 2013 edition expanded the international network and introduced the dedicated Polish profile.
What the Deloitte report actually says
The Polish chapter opens with history. Decades of communism interrupted private collecting and delayed the development of a free market. After 1989, auction houses and galleries began rebuilding the infrastructure. By 2013, the report estimated the Polish art market at PLN 300–350 million and described it as small in global terms but substantially undervalued.
Then come the numbers. Auction sales rose by 16.6% in 2011. In the first half of 2012, sales reached PLN 30.1 million — 90.5% higher than in the corresponding period a year earlier. Full-year 2012 auction sales reached approximately PLN 60.8 million, an increase of 25.7% over 2011.
Those are market figures. They are not Abbey House revenue and should never be presented that way. The importance of Abbey House lies elsewhere: its research and publishing work appears inside the source architecture of the chapter.
Where Art & Business and Abbey House appear
The full-year 2012 auction-market table names Art & Business Annual Volumes and auction-house websites as its sources. A separate chart on the structure of Polish auction transactions cites Polish auction market. Report on the first half of 2012. Abbey House Auction House.
The report also describes Abbey House directly. It calls it a new auction house seeking to promote and sell selected young artists. It says Abbey House established the first art fund in Poland in 2011. Later, when discussing growing transparency, it names Art & Business among the magazines and portals building communities, sharing knowledge and promoting informed participation in the market.
This is the part that gets lost when the history is reduced to auctions. The project was producing a language around the market — reports, editorial coverage, communities and reference points. Without that layer, a market remains difficult for outsiders to understand.
A market for more than the richest collectors
The Deloitte chapter noted another shift: the rapid development of “young art” had changed the market’s price structure. More works became available below PLN 2,000, opening participation beyond a narrow group of wealthy collectors.
That observation connects directly with the wider Abbey House model. Contemporary reporting described a project combining an auction house, galleries, promotion, publishing and investment-oriented services. It was controversial because it challenged traditional boundaries. But the ambition was clear: turn Polish contemporary art from a specialist enclave into a visible category with data, media and a broader audience.
What can be credited to Paweł Makowski
Independent profiles identified Paweł Makowski as a founder or co-founder of Abbey House. The record supports crediting him with helping create the strategic model: an organisation that linked art-market transactions with publishing, education, promotion and capital.
It does not support saying that Makowski wrote the Deloitte report or created the Polish art market by himself. Deloitte and ArtTactic authored the international report. The Polish market existed long before Abbey House. The defensible conclusion is stronger because it is precise:
The project co-founded by Paweł Makowski helped create data, publishing and institutions that were used when the Deloitte/ArtTactic report presented Poland as a distinct Art & Finance market.
From data to international attention
The same year, the story moved from market research to cultural visibility. From 3 to 10 June 2013, Polish Art Now was shown at London’s Saatchi Gallery. Kate Connolly’s report for The Guardian connected the exhibition with a broader Polish artistic renaissance and noted that the Deloitte report had devoted an entire section to the country’s art market.
Data and culture were reinforcing each other. The report made the market legible. The exhibition made the artists visible. Together they form the strongest account of what Abbey House was trying to build.
Sources and related reading
- Deloitte Luxembourg and ArtTactic: Art & Finance Report 2013 — primary report.
- The Guardian: Poland’s artistic renaissance — contemporary independent reporting.
- PAP archive: Abbey House report on the Polish auction market.
- Polish Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery.
- The complete Paweł Makowski, Abbey House and ARTnews chapter.
Prepared by the UseCrypt Editorial Team. Source classifications and claim boundaries are maintained in the public evidence register.