Photography at the Polish auction market

Anna Bednarek

Editing and peer review managed by:

Katarzyna Jagodzińska, Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury, Kraków / International Cultural Centre, Krakow

Reviewers:

Michał Haake, Adam Mazur

Polish version available at / Wersja polska dostępna pod:

(RIHA Journal 0053)

Abstract

The article analyses the state of the photography auction market in Poland on the basis of the sales in the period from the first photography auction (1996) until the end of 2011. The data allow the reader to discover the scale of this market (turnover, number of items sold), characteristics of purchased objects (price records, average prices, popular artists and periods) and the difficulties encountered when studying this phenomenon. The conclusion contains predictions on the further development of this market.

Contents

Introduction

1. Photography functions in many situations and contexts, which is why the photography market encompasses various phenomena. The demand for photography is wide-ranging, from the press and books through advertising and daily life to science and art. As a result the photography market offers very much variety – from amateur family pictures to works of great masters. Also the ways of selling and distributing photography are varied.¹ One of them are auctions, where physically existing objects are offered, usually treated as works of art and purchased mostly by collectors and institutions such as museums.

2. The phenomenon is relatively young, because for more than one hundred years of photography's existence the print itself did not represent a significant market value. It was a kind of half-product, used for making reproductions in newspapers and so on. The print market, independent from the market of studio and press photography, has been developing on a major scale since late 1960s.² Of course, prints were bought and sold also earlier,³ but it was only the belief that they may be treated as works of art in their own right which made them appear on a growing scale in venues previously reserved for art trade (galleries, auctions, art fairs), hence achieving ever higher prices. A significant factor for the emergence of this market was the practice introduced in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s to specify the circulation (edition) of a photograph,⁴ thanks to which the purchaser knows how many identical prints were made.⁵

3. When we leave aside the occasional 19^th-century auctions,⁶ the first auction focused exclusively on photography took place in 1952 in the New York Gallerie Swann.⁷ In the 1960s and 1970s auctions started to be organised by such auction houses as Sotheby's, Christie's, Philips (now Philips de Pury & Company) and Drouot,⁸ which – alongside with many other auction houses in the world – continue this practice until today.

4. Despite the significant growth of the market which occurred in the last quarter of the century, photography still accounts only for a fraction of the global art market and the prices are lower than for paintings. The Polish photography (and generally art) market is incomparable in scale and importance with Western markets, which results largely from Polish history – it was only from 1989 that the art market could develop freely, so it understandably remains many years behind Western markets. Moreover, the Polish population is much less wealthy and the artists are of mostly local renown. There are more factors influencing the Polish photography market but they would require a separate treatment. They include unsatisfactory state of research on the history of Polish photography, which is generally known to a narrow group of experts,⁹ bad condition of the photography magazines market, a limited number of experts and specialists on photography and a too narrow outreach of the Museum of History of Photography in Krakow.¹⁰

5. It is difficult to ascertain when photography entered the Polish auctions; individual items appeared in a rather haphazard way in auctions of books, engraving or painting¹¹ at least since the 1980s.¹² The first two auctions in Poland selling only photographs were organised by the Association of Polish Artists Photographers (ZPAF) in 1996 and 1997 but as the turnover was not satisfactory, no further auctions were staged.¹³ It was only in 2003 that the auction house Polswiss Art undertook a similar initiative and Rempex followed suit in the same year. Despite a significant interest of the media in the Polswiss Art event¹⁴ it proved ephemeral (although next year there was a charity auction of photographs, it did not generate such an interest¹⁵). But the Rempex auctions have been continued, organised once or twice a year in cooperation with the Artinfo.pl website under the name Fotografia kolekcjonerska [Collectors' Photography].¹⁶

6. Since 2005 photography auctions are also held by the Łódź auction house Rynek Sztuki. In 2007 ZPAF returned to auctions, organising four events of this kind until 2010. One auction was held by Desa Unicum (2009) and the ARTon Foundation (2010). Individual photographs also appear at various auctions (for example, of young art) in all major auction houses. They are also sold at antiquarian, charity, internet and gallery auctions.

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Auction offer

7. The offer of photography auctions in Poland so far has been variegated, from anonymous daguerreotypes from mid-19^th century and cartes de visite made in popular ateliers through works of classics and avant-garde artists to photographs made by young creators. Auctions held by Rynek Sztuki, with the most homogenous offer, are an exception; these are photographs of decorative nature (landscapes, nudes) made by young or less known artists.

8. Because of the short pedigree of the photography market the secondary market has not yet developed fully. Agnieszka Gniotek, co-organiser of the first three auctions from the cycle Polish Collectors' Photography (Rempex and Artinfo.pl), claims that most articles at the early auctions came from the artists themselves or their families. The secondary market gradually emerged and although at recent auctions within this cycle most items were still acquired from the artists themselves or their inheritors, about 30-40 percent came from the secondary market. Such a situation results also from the fact that institutional sellers are not very active, because museums rarely use the possibility of selling objects from their collections¹⁷ and financial institutions (for example, banks) are only beginning to establish their art collections. Initially this market void caused the appreciations to be excessive – because of the lack of points of reference – which in turn enlarges the turnover of post-auction sales. Although now appreciations are usually adequate, owners of the auctioned items are still pressing for increased asking prices.¹⁸

9. Besides auctions focused exclusively on photography we should take note of auctions held by antiquarians, for photographs form a significant part of their offer. Undoubtedly a large part of these items have a documentary rather than artistic character but it is not a rule.¹⁹ Including them in our analysis may seem wrong but it is not my job or aim to judge arbitrarily which photographs are artistic and which are not, even assuming that such an appraisal would be possible²⁰ (as Sylvie Pflieger and Dominique Sagot-Duvauroux correctly say, no one questions the fact that some photographs are works of art and most of them are not – but the whole problem is how to differentiate the former from the latter.)²¹ So I will only say that just as at auctions of paintings, engravings or sculptures we are dealing with masterpieces and with poor, imitative works of little value, also in the case of photography you can encounter true works of art and mass-produced photographs following the same pattern.²² So in my analyses I will take into account the results of all photography auctions in Poland, with all the above reservations kept in mind.

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Accessibility of auction results

10. Results of photography auctions allow us to make calculations and analyse the market but in the case of Poland their accessibility is incomplete. First, auction results are regularly published only by the Art & Business magazine²³ but they usually do not cover events held outside auction houses (for example, charity auctions). The fullest data are presented by the Artinfo.pl website but it is not an ideal instrument.²⁴ And the auction houses themselves usually publish on their websites the results of recent auctions but not those from several (or more) years back. Acquiring auction results from ZPAF is also not easy.²⁵ So it would undoubtedly be useful if results of all hitherto photography auctions were published in one volume,²⁶ especially that their number is not forbiddingly large.

11. The second problem is connected with conditional sale, that is when the price of an item gradually comes down below the asking price and the first bidder conditionally becomes its owner. The sale may be concluded only when the original owner agrees to the lower price. But it does not always happen.²⁷ What is more, there are similar situations with items sold at auctions governed by the traditional system, which are not always purchased after the auction,²⁸ which distorts the results (pushing them upwards). So acquiring a real picture would only be possible if only concluded transactions (and post-auction sales) were published.

12. Things being so, the following analyses are of necessity based on uncertain and probably incomplete data. In the tables and graphs below I took into account results published in the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl as well as on the Artinfo.pl website. In absence of other sources this is the only possible, although imperfect, solution. I collected 3185 auction results in Poland from the period 1996-2011, which I analyse in the following sections of the article. There are no data to compare these analyses with, for as far as I know, the Polish photography market has been more extensively described only in three as yet unpublished works²⁹ and isolated information on, for example, annual turnover at photography auctions appears only incidentally, usually without a wider comment or explanations.³⁰

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Turnover and number of items sold

13. As the diagrams below reveal,³¹ until 2003 photography was largely absent at auctions; if we leave aside the two ZPAF auctions from 1996 and 1997, only a few pictures a year were sold. The year 2003 saw a break-through, for the two above-named auctions held by Polswiss Art and Rempex took place but it turned out that an attempt at creating demand through advertising and marketing measures was not quite successful, for in the two successive years the turnover and number of items sold fell significantly. Despite that the situation improved, for neither the turnover nor the number of items sold returned to pre-2003 levels. In the two last years we have been observing a decline, especially of turnovers in auction houses, which is probably connected with the global economic crisis.

14. The presented data show that the photography market in Poland is small and accounts for an insignificant part of the entire art market, which in 2011 recorded the turnover of about 48.4 million PLN (c. 11 million euro – eds.).³² According to Maciej Gajewski, in 2011 photography constituted 1% of the turnover of the Polish art market and 2% of the number of transactions but he took into account only auction houses (he put the turnover at 266.04 thousand PLN and the number of transactions at 104).³³ Even adding the remaining auctions would not significantly increase photography's share in the art market. But contrary to what may seem this situation is not markedly different from the global one – in 2011 photography accounted just for 1.6% of the entire auction turnover in the world.³⁴ Also comparing price records reveals an inferior position of photography against other art disciplines: while the most expensive painting sold at an auction (Edvard Munch's The Scream) fetched the price 119.9 million dollars,³⁵ the most expensive photograph (Andreas Gursky's Rhine II) cost almost 28 times less (4.3 million dollars).³⁶

1 Turnover of photography auction sales in Poland in 1996-2011 (in thousands of PLN). Source: the author's calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

2 Turnover of photography auction sales in Poland in 1996-2011 divided between venues (in thousands of PLN). Source: the author's own calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

3 Number of photographs sold at auctions in Poland in 1996-2011. Source: the author's own calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

4 Number of photographs sold at auctions in Poland in 1996-2011 divided between venues (in thousands of PLN). Source: the author's own calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

15. As the diagrams show, photography's share in auctions outside auction houses was relatively big, especially in terms of the number of transactions. Of all photographs sold in 1996-2011 at auctions in Poland 72.31% went under the hammer at auction houses and ZPAF, 12.59% at charity auctions, 8.53% at antiquarian auctions and 6.57% at other auctions. As we can see, the Polish market is so small that when we omit photographs sold outside auction houses, we are ignoring almost half of the purchased objects.

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Price records

16. In comparison to the price record quoted above, namely Gursky's photograph, the price of the most expensive photograph sold at a Polish auction was several times lower. Although all price records have to be approached with caution, they allow us to ascertain which authors are valued the most by the buyers, ready to pay the biggest sums for their works. Such rankings for paintings are published relatively often but I have never encountered a ranking of photographs auctioned for highest prices in Poland.

5 The highest priced photographs at Polish auctions in 1996-2011. A ranking prepared by the author on the basis of auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

17. The highest priced Polish photographs are above all the classical ones such as Stanisław Witkiewicz (Witkacy). This artist is known not only in Poland but also abroad;³⁷ it is worth noting that in 2011 his self-portrait was sold in New York for 52.5 thousand dollars.³⁸ Such high prices certainly reflect also the very small supply of his photographs.³⁹ The same holds for Karol Hiller⁴⁰ (since 1996 only four of his heliographs have been sold at auctions⁴¹), an artist of undoubted renown, compared to such artists as Man Ray or Christian Schad.⁴² Items connected with Tadeusz Kantor are highly appreciated, such as print-outs from his tachist film and the photograph of Eustachy Kossakowski with A Panoramic Maritime Happening. Highly ranked are also pictures by another contemporary classic, Zbigniew Dłubak, closely followed by Zdzisław Beksiński. Among other authors we can find living artists, members of the middle-aged generation, such as Jakub Pajewski or Juliusz Sokołowski. A number of the highest-priced photographs were made by foreign artists of world renown (Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Peter Lindbergh, Jan Saudek) or foreign members of the younger generation (Jiři David, Exilentia Exiff). The ranking contains few old photographs. Besides the self-portrait of Witkacy these exceptions are a picture by Wilhelm von Gloeden and three albums, with one lot containing many prints, so the price of an individual photograph was low.

6 Karol Hiller, Heliographic composition (V), before 1934, heliograph on paper, vintage print, unique print, 22,8 x 18,8 cm. Sold on 6 December 2011 at the Fotografia Kolekcjonerska auction (the photograph from the Auction House Rempex archive, published courtesy of the author)

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Average prices of photographs

18. High prices in the graph below are reached only by selected items, with the average price being lower. The prices were subject to significant fluctuations but it must be added that in 1999, 2000 and 2002 the number of recorded transactions was so small that the results can hardly be considered representative. The very high average from 1999 was leveraged by just one photograph – Hiller's heliograph. And in 2002 the distortion of the average price was due to five prints, one of which (by Stasys Eidrigevičius) cost 10 thousand PLN and another (again by Hiller) sold for 20 thousand PLN and they had a disproportionate impact on the average price. In 2003 we observe an individual peak (the auctions in Polswiss Art and Rempex), after which the average price fell and largely stayed within the 700-1700 PLN bracket. It should be remembered that these sums are produced on the one hand by works sold at auction houses for several thousand PLN and on the other hand by photographs traded at antiquarian bookstores, rarely exceeding a few hundred PLN.

7 Average prices of photographs at Polish auctions in 1996-2011 (in PLN). Source: the author's calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

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When the sold photographs were made

19. The above ranking of the most expensive photographs in Poland gives only a partial picture of the preferences of photography buyers. It is quite difficult to answer the question what kind of works and by whom are the most valued and sought after. It is relatively easy to establish the periods in which the items sold at auctions were created,⁴³ as shown on the diagram below.

20. It is noticeable that the number of prints sold is related to their age. The oldest photographs have been selling in the smallest numbers and the youngest ones in the biggest. 20^th-century photography accounts for roughly 93% of the market. But these figures have to be approached with caution, for they do not say what percentage of the whole offer from a given period was sold. In other words, slightly more than 7% for 19^th-century photography accounts for a small part of the market but this may result not only from a small demand for pictures from this group but also (or perhaps even above all) from a small supply. So it would be advisable to relate the data presented here to the number of unsold photographs, that is to the entire auction offer, but because of the large number of auctions and poor availability of catalogues it would be a difficult if not impossible task. But it is obvious that with small supply and large demand, that is when the buyers are especially eager to purchase a given product, they are ready to pay more. So we should expect an increase in prices. Average prices of photographs from the five categories quoted above are presented in the graph below.

8 The age of photographs sold at auctions in Poland in 1996-2011. Source: the author's calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

9 Average prices of photographs sold at auctions in Poland in 1996-2011. Source: the author's calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

21. As we can see, 19^th-century photography not only sells poorly but also the prices are the lowest. The earliest photographs group contains just 17 items, of which only two exceeded one thousand PLN. Generally speaking, 19^th-century photography is cheap (according to commentators - too cheap⁴⁴) and high prices are fetched only by extraordinary works (made by well-known authors, artistically unique, rare, etc.). The most expensive are photographs from early 20^th century and the period after 1960; pictures from 1930-1950 are situated in-between.

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Selected artists

22. Besides the highest prices it is also worth analysing the number of works sold by particular authors, presented in the graph below.

23. Two photographers whose works were sold in the highest number at auctions in 1996-2011 (Jan Bułhak and Edward Hartwig) left the rest far behind. The table also contains other classics: Jerzy Benedykt Dorys and Tadeusz Wański. There are also names of more avant-garde artists (Bronisław Schlabs, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz) and representatives of most recent photography (Witold Krymarys). We must remember that sometimes the supply of works by a given author has little to do with the demand or the significance of the author: the heliographs of Hiller may be mentioned here, now rarely present at auctions but realising high prices.

10 Photographers with the highest number of works sold at auctions in Poland in 1996-2011. Source: the author's calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

11 Average prices of works by photographers with the highest number of works sold at auctions in Poland in 1996-2011. Source: the author's calculations based on auction results published by the magazines Art & Business and Sztuka.pl (Gazeta Antykwaryczna) as well as the Artinfo.pl website

24. Among the 22 artists included in the table the highest prices were realised by works of Lach-Lachowicz and Ryszard Waśko, with a significant advantage over the next authors. Pictures by representatives of 19^th-century photography were the cheapest: Ignacy Krieger, Walery Rzewuski and Awit Szubert, as well as works by contemporary artists: Krymarys and Piotr Rosiński (connected with the auction house Rynek Sztuki) and Adam Kiełb (selling exclusively through Desa Katowice).

25. The prices of works by artists analysed here are relatively stable and in 1996-2011 did not exhibit significant fluctuations (if we except a number of bargains, appearing around 2000 mostly at charity auctions). In the last 16 years we have been observing a generally upward trend but it does not regard all authors. The rise in prices is not significant and it seems that it mostly affects contemporary and avant-garde artists, such as Zygmunt Rytka or Waśko, and to a smaller degree such photographers as Bułhak.

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Conclusion

26. The Polish photography market still finds itself in the initial stage of its existence. Although you can read that the epoch when photography was cheap, easy and accessible, has come to an end and photography is today a highly valued product,⁴⁵ it would be a mistake to formulate too optimistic judgements – it is best illustrated by the fact that since last year only one auction (rather than two as before) from the cycle Fotografia Kolekcjonerska is held. But we must not forget that events of this type – today being a natural part of the art market – a dozen years ago had a pioneering character. And they are also more and more professional.

27. In this period an informal arrangement concerning photography auctions has developed. Of various – more or less successful – initiatives we spoke about above two undertakings emerged which are continued to this day and are organised regularly: Fotografia Kolekcjonerska and Rynek Sztuki auctions - but photographs are also present at many other auctions. Old photography, of mostly documentary value, is the domain of antiquarian auctions, where it realises relatively low prices (several hundred PLN). The so called artistic photography, both by the classics from the early 20^th century and by later avant-garde artists, is sold mostly in auction houses, realising – especially in the case of the latter photographers – prices in the range of several (less often a dozen) thousand PLN. Works by representatives of the youngest generation are also present in auction houses and in charity auctions, where they fetch sums from several hundred up to a dozen thousand PLN. The auction house Rynek Sztuki specialises in a distinctive branch of the newest photography – pictures called nice for the eye by Janusz Miliszkiewicz.⁴⁶ But it is an exception, for the auction houses (Rempex) usually offer the most expensive objects. It is probably because of the price level and the enduring economic crisis that the sales at such auctions has been decreasing since 2008.

28. In recent years new phenomena and initiatives have appeared which support – although not always directly – the Polish photography market, such as photography festivals, new photography Galleries, foundations, for example Archeologia Fotografii [the Archeology of Photography Foundation] and unusual forms of sale.⁴⁷ But above all we must stress the role of displays of private photography collections (owned by Wojciech Jędrzejewski, Cezary Pieczyński, Grażyna Kulczyk, Stefan Okołowicz and others), which encourage new collectors and help them to overcome fears, strengthen the position of photography and help to discover works which are not normally accessible.

29. It is difficult to predict the development of the photography (and art) market in the coming years but we may expect that the modest scale of the photography market in Poland will not significantly change. Just as the prices of paintings, several times lower than in the West, the prices of photographs will not achieve a level even comparable to the Western ones. Gniotek seems to be correct in her assumption that the photography market in Poland will never be comparable to the painting market.⁴⁸ Perhaps in the future individuals artists (especially contemporary ones) will manage to achieve a status similar to that of Wilhelm Sasnal or Mirosław Bałka but they will get high prices for their works only abroad. As long as the income of the Poles will remain lower than of the inhabitants of Western Europe and the USA and the significance of Polish photography will remain local, the Polish photography market will not significantly expand.

Translated by Tomasz Bieroń

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How to cite this article:
Anna Bednarek, "Photography at the Polish auction market," RIHA Journal 0054 (17 September 2012), URN: + URL: (date of access: [please add]).

Originally published in Polish as: "Fotografia na rynku aukcyjnym w Polsce," RIHA Journal 0053 (17 September 2012).