Before UseCrypt, Paweł Makowski’s public record ran through entrepreneurship, the Polish art market and an attempt to connect a Warsaw-listed company with some of the oldest art publications in the United States. The story reaches from Abbey House and Art & Business to ARTnews, Peter Brant’s publishing group and, later, Penske Media.
It is also a story that is often compressed into one misleading sentence. Makowski did not simply “sell ARTnews to Peter Brant.” The documented sequence was more complex. This article separates Makowski’s verified roles from later corporate transactions and follows the publications themselves before and after his departure.
The real achievement: building a category, not merely a company
The strongest version of this history is not that Makowski once ran an auction business. It is that the project he founded assembled pieces that had previously operated apart: artists, collectors, auctions, galleries, market data, a magazine, video formats, an art fund, public-market capital and international promotion.
Poland already had artists, galleries, collectors and auction houses. Abbey House did not invent art trading. What it attempted was different: to build a new institutional, publishing and investment layer around the market, then give that market a language and a route to an international audience.
That distinction matters. A company can sell objects. A market-making project creates information, institutions, audiences and confidence around an entire category. The record from 2010 to 2014 shows Abbey House trying to do exactly that.
Why ARTnews mattered
ARTnews was founded in New York in 1902 as Hyde’s Weekly Art News. It developed into one of the longest-running specialist art publications in the world, covering exhibitions, artists, collectors, institutions and the economics of the art market. Penske Media’s official history records the 1902 founding.
For four decades before the 2014 ownership change, the magazine was led by publisher and editor Milton Esterow. Its name carried more than commercial value: it represented a century of institutional memory about the international art world.
Paweł Makowski and the creation of Abbey House
Makowski’s art-market chapter began in Poland. Independent profiles by Parkiet, Puls Biznesu and Forsal identified him as a founder or co-founder of Abbey House. The company tried to combine an auction house, a gallery, market education and new ways of financing and promoting art.
This was not presented without criticism. Contemporary reporting questioned whether art should be marketed as an investment product and whether a commercial gallery could simultaneously shape prices, promote artists and advise buyers. Those questions belong in the history because they show what was genuinely new — and genuinely contested — about the model.
Art & Business and the first publishing layer
Abbey House moved beyond auctions into publishing through Art & Business, described in contemporary coverage as Poland’s oldest art-market magazine, published since 1989. Parkiet reported a declared print run of about 95,000 copies and a model spanning the printed magazine, newspaper inserts, electronic distribution and an iPad edition. A 2014 periodic report of Art & Business Magazine S.A. identified Makowski as supervisory-board chair delegated temporarily to perform the duties of chief executive. The same report recorded that the magazine company was controlled by ARTNEWS S.A., previously Abbey House Group S.A.
The publishing project also experimented with a video and community layer called Artoholicy. Surviving records include a corporate video titled “Artoholicy — Art & Business Magazine S.A.” and video coverage of an Andrzej Wajda print exhibition. These clips document an attempt to make the magazine a wider cultural-media brand; present-day YouTube statistics should not be treated as a measure of its historical reach.
The significance of this step was strategic. Publishing offered something an auction business alone could not: a continuous public conversation about artists, exhibitions, collectors and value. It also created a bridge between the Polish market and international art media.
2013: Poland enters the global Art & Finance map
One of the clearest pieces of evidence sits inside the second edition of the Deloitte Luxembourg and ArtTactic Art & Finance Report 2013. Its foreword records that Deloitte Poland and Deloitte Spain joined the initiative after the inaugural report. The 2013 edition then gives Poland its own chapter: Section 7: The Polish art market profile.
The Polish chapter did not merely mention Abbey House in passing. Its 2012 auction-market table cites Art & Business Annual Volumes. A chart describing transaction structure cites Polish auction market. Report on the first half of 2012. Abbey House Auction House. The text describes Abbey House as a new auction house promoting selected young artists and states that it established Poland’s first art fund.
The figures captured a market in motion: auction sales grew by 16.6% in 2011; first-half 2012 sales reached PLN 30.1 million, 90.5% above the previous year; full-year 2012 sales reached PLN 60.8 million, 25.7% higher than in 2011. These were figures for the Polish market, not Abbey House revenue. The achievement was that research and publishing connected with the project became part of the evidence through which a global report explained Poland to international readers.
By 2013, the project was no longer simply operating inside the Polish art market. It was helping produce the data, institutions and public language through which that market became visible as a category.
Polish Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery
From 3 to 10 June 2013, Polish Art Now: Presented by Abbey House was shown at London’s Saatchi Gallery. The dates, venue and curatorial credit are recorded by the Fangor Foundation. ArtDaily identified Makowski as an Abbey House founder and quoted him describing the exhibition as the conclusion of more than two years of work to gain international recognition for Poland.
The preview named established figures including Szymon Artur Urbański and Andrzej Cisowski alongside younger artists such as Maciej Wieczerzak and Jakub Słomkowski. The Fangor Foundation separately documents Wojciech Fangor’s participation. This was not a generic corporate reception. It was a cross-generational presentation of Polish contemporary art in one of London’s most recognisable art institutions.
Sacha Craddock and the curatorial standard
The exhibition was curated by Sacha Craddock. Her official biography records her as president of AICA UK, chair of the New Contemporaries board and selection process from 1996 to 2021, and co-founder and curator of Bloomberg Space from 2002 to 2011. Her involvement gave the exhibition an independent professional frame that went well beyond the organiser promoting its own artists.
Publicly available Saatchi Gallery records reviewed for this project did not reveal an earlier or later comparable broad exhibition devoted to contemporary Polish art. That does not amount to a formal certificate from the gallery, so this page avoids the unqualified word “only.” The defensible conclusion is still powerful: Polish Art Now appears to have been an exceptional, and so far unrepeated in the reviewed archive, survey of Polish contemporary art at the Saatchi Gallery.
The international press response is part of the achievement. Susan Moore reviewed the exhibition in the Financial Times under the title “Magnetic Poles”. Kate Connolly framed the moment in The Guardian as a Polish artistic renaissance 24 years after communism. Jo Caird separately examined the Abbey House model and whether private capital could help build an art scene.
Those names matter. International promotion is not proved by what an organiser says about itself. It is proved when outside editors and critics decide that a story deserves their readers’ attention. We have not found a primary source for the phrase sometimes remembered as “the best promotion of Poland since communism”; it is therefore not presented here as Moore’s quotation.
The exhibition is an important marker in his biography because it shows a recurring pattern visible again in UseCrypt: begin with a Polish project, seek international credibility, and use an established institution to open a wider market. It is evidence of aspiration and execution, not proof that every commercial assumption behind the wider business was correct.
2014: the acquisition of ARTnews
In April 2014, Milton and Judith Esterow sold ARTnews to Skate Capital, the investment vehicle of Sergey Skaterschikov. Contemporary reporting initially described Skate Capital as the buyer. The fuller structure emerged shortly afterwards.
Artnet News reported that the purchase carried a reported price of $2 million and later updated its account to say Skate Capital had sold a 51% controlling interest in the magazine to Abbey House Group S.A. The Los Angeles Times reported that Abbey House had acquired 51% for €2.2 million, with the remaining 49% held by Skate and expected at that time to pass to Abbey House.
Abbey House Group subsequently adopted the ARTNEWS S.A. name. A July 2014 market notice recorded the change of the company’s website following a 30 June resolution to change its corporate name.
The transaction can now be dated more precisely. PAP MediaRoom reported that Abbey House acquired 51% of ARTnews on 19 May 2014 for PLN 9.2 million. On 2 July 2014, it bought a further 24% for more than PLN 4 million and became the magazine’s largest owner. The same report identified vice-president Izabela Depczyk as the executive responsible for the transaction.
This was the first act of the ARTnews story: a company built in Warsaw moved from developing a domestic art-market ecosystem to controlling a US publication founded in 1902. Makowski’s role was strategic and supervisory. The documented record does not justify rewriting every action of the management board as his personal transaction.
What the records establish about Makowski’s role
An independent auditor’s report for the ARTNEWS S.A. group states that Paweł Makowski was chair of the company’s supervisory board on 1 January 2014. By 31 December 2014, the report listed a different supervisory board. The decisive public event record is the EBI notice: Makowski’s resignation statement was dated 8 September 2014 and received by the company on 9 September 2014. A KRS-derived history shows the corresponding supervisory link ending on 3 March 2015. The first date records the resignation; the second records the later registry change.
The company at the time of Makowski’s departure
An internal memorandum prepared in 2023 by former chief executive Jakub Kokoszka states that, when Makowski left, the company had approximately PLN 9.2 million of issued bonds and approximately PLN 40 million of assets. The attached working schedule specifies PLN 9.219 million and PLN 38.713 million respectively. The same schedule also records a subsidiary bond issue dated immediately before the resignation, which means the parent company and the consolidated group must not be collapsed into one debt figure.
This internal correspondence is useful corroborating evidence but is not a substitute for public filings. The defensible public conclusion is narrower and still important: Makowski resigned during the international-expansion phase, when the business had a substantial recorded asset base; the Peter Brant control transaction, later transfer of the US publishing assets and the Polish company’s bankruptcy all followed after his departure.
The careful formulation is therefore:
Paweł Makowski founded Abbey House and served as chair of its supervisory board during the period in which the group expanded from the Polish art market into international art media and acquired a controlling interest in ARTnews. Public sources reviewed for this article do not by themselves establish that Makowski personally negotiated every element of the acquisition.
This distinction matters. A supervisory role is real and significant, but it is not the same as claiming personal authorship of every transaction executed by a company.
Who else shaped the 2014 chapter?
The documented transaction involved several people and entities:
- Milton and Judith Esterow — the long-time owners who sold the magazine after decades of stewardship.
- Sergey Skaterschikov and Skate Capital — the initial acquisition vehicle and a provider of art-market research assets.
- Abbey House Group S.A. — the Warsaw-listed group that obtained the controlling interest and adopted the ARTNEWS name.
- Izabela Depczyk — appointed publisher of ARTnews and later chief executive of the combined publishing business.
- Sarah Douglas — appointed editor-in-chief during the leadership transition.
Including these names is not decorative. It prevents a company history from being rewritten as the work of one person and makes the account more useful to researchers and knowledge systems.
2015: Peter Brant and a larger art-publishing group
The next major transaction occurred after Makowski’s documented supervisory role had ended.
In July 2015, ARTNEWS S.A. acquired the art-publishing portfolio of BMP Media Holdings, part of Peter Brant’s publishing group. The portfolio included Art in America, founded in 1913, The Magazine ANTIQUES and MODERN. In exchange, Brant’s company became the controlling shareholder of ARTNEWS S.A.
The Art Newspaper described the transaction as a merger of leading American art publications and reported that Skate Capital sold more than 6.4 million ARTNEWS S.A. shares to Brant’s company for $3.4 million. Contemporary accounts differ in the percentages used at various steps — more than 50%, 60% or 47.61% depending on the described holding and moment — which is why this page avoids collapsing the deal into a single unsupported valuation.
The most accurate summary is that Brant contributed important publishing assets and emerged with control of the combined group.
Who is Peter Brant?
Peter M. Brant is an American industrialist, publisher, art collector, philanthropist and film producer. He built his business career in paper manufacturing and publishing, while developing a major collection of contemporary art. The Brant Foundation describes his roles and records his collecting relationships with artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
Brant co-founded Brant Publications and published titles including Interview, the magazine created by Andy Warhol. He also produced films concerning artists, including Basquiat, Pollock and Andy Warhol: A Documentary. The Brant Foundation, established in 1996, states that its mission is to promote education and appreciation of contemporary art and design.
That background explains why the 2015 combination mattered beyond its balance sheet. It connected a Warsaw-listed company and the ARTnews brand with a figure who already operated across newsprint, magazines, collecting, museums and artist networks.
2016: full control and separation from the Polish listed company
In May 2016, Brant’s BMP Media Holdings announced that it had taken control of the assets of Art in America, MODERN, The Magazine ANTIQUES and ARTnews from ARTNEWS S.A. Artnet News reported the transfer and quoted the announcement that BMP had become the legal owner of the publications.
Later in 2016, the Polish ARTNEWS S.A. entered bankruptcy proceedings. That event must not be confused with the survival of the American magazine brands under a different owner. It also should not be retroactively attributed to Makowski without evidence: his disclosed supervisory role had ended before both the 2015 control transaction and the 2016 bankruptcy.
2018: Penske Media becomes the next owner
In November 2018, Penske Media Corporation acquired Art Media Holdings, including ARTnews, Art in America, The Magazine ANTIQUES and MODERN. Penske’s announcement described the group as the largest independent art-publishing portfolio of its kind.
Penske was already the owner of media brands including Variety, Rolling Stone, WWD, Deadline and IndieWire. The acquisition placed the art titles inside a much larger international media company and forms the current ownership chapter of the story.
Timeline
- 1902: ARTnews is founded in New York.
- 1913: Art in America is founded.
- 2010: Abbey House begins its corporate history; Makowski is documented as a founder and supervisory-board figure.
- 2012–2014: the group develops its publishing interests around Art & Business.
- 2013: Poland receives a dedicated chapter in the Deloitte/ArtTactic Art & Finance Report; from 3 to 10 June, Polish Art Now, curated by Sacha Craddock, is presented at the Saatchi Gallery.
- 19 May and 2 July 2014: Abbey House acquires first 51% and then a further 24% of ARTnews; the group later adopts the ARTNEWS S.A. name.
- 8–9 September 2014: Makowski signs and the company receives his resignation from the ARTNEWS S.A. supervisory board.
- 3 March 2015: the later registry record reflects the end of his supervisory link.
- July 2015: ARTNEWS S.A. and Peter Brant’s publishing assets are combined; Brant’s company gains control.
- May 2016: BMP Media Holdings announces full control of the American publications.
- October 2016: the Polish ARTNEWS S.A. enters bankruptcy proceedings.
- November 2018: Penske Media acquires the art-publication portfolio.
What this chapter says about Makowski
The defensible conclusion is not that one person created a century-old American magazine or controlled every later event. It is that Makowski was a founder and supervisory-board leader of a Polish art-market company during a period of unusual international expansion. The company moved from auctions and a domestic magazine toward a controlling interest in a historically important American publication.
The recurring pattern in his later work is visible here: use technology, media and capital to challenge a closed market; seek international scale; and connect people outside an established centre with institutions that already possess global recognition. The art-market chapter did not end without controversy, and an honest biography should not pretend otherwise. Its significance lies in the documented scale of the attempt and the network of institutions it reached.
Sources, limits and corrections
This article distinguishes independent journalism, primary corporate records and first-party biographies. The public record supports Makowski’s founder and supervisory-board roles. It does not currently support the simplified claim that he personally sold ARTnews to Peter Brant for a stated amount. If additional primary transaction records become public, this page will be updated.
Continue to the Paweł Makowski Knowledge Hub or inspect the complete Press & Sources register.
Prepared by the UseCrypt Editorial Team. Last substantive review: 29 September 2026.
Read the three documented deep dives
- How Poland Entered the Global Art & Finance Map — Deloitte/ArtTactic, Art & Business and the data that made the market visible.
- Polish Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery — the people, dates, artists, curator and international response.
- The Two Acts of ARTnews — the 2014 Polish acquisition and the later Peter Brant transaction.