How Warsaw has become a new capital of collecting

Poland became the world’s 20th largest economy in 2026, with annual output exceeding $1tn. Warsaw’s skyline still includes the Soviet-era Palace of Culture and Science, but it now also features modern corporate tower blocks built in the last decade. A Museum of Modern Art opened in 2024 near the palace, designed by Thomas Phifer. Collecting art has expanded over roughly the last 20 years, with previously little or no market activity. Major collectors have renovated historic properties to display collections and support Polish artists at international venues such as the Venice Biennale. Warsaw also hosts Art Warsaw, an art fair held in a former British Embassy building with Cold War-era remnants.

"“It was only about 20 years ago that collecting art really started here,” says Joanna Witek-Lipka, the director of Warsaw Gallery Weekend, now in its 16th year and which brings together some 50 galleries in late September. She continues: “Before that there was virtually no market.” Today, in contrast there are some major collectors: Jerzy Starak, for instance, who with his wife Anna have tapped Renzo Piano to renovate a 17th century palace near Warsaw to show their collection."

"“Every year their charitable foundation exhibits Polish artists at the Venice Biennale - this year it was Tadeusz Kantor. Artur and Mitra Dela collect both Polish and international art and are also very philanthropic. In Switzerland Grażyna Kulczyk has established the Muzeum Susch, featuring Polish and international artists.”"

"For the last three years, the country's capital has boasted an art fair, Art Warsaw, which was held from 21 to 24 May this year in the 19th-century Villa Róż, formerly the British Embassy during the Cold War era. Now very dilapidated, the building still bears traces of its spying past, with reinforced safe rooms and even an incinerator, still splattered with ash. It even conserves a 1950s night club, the Pink Elephant."

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