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Roberto Polo Roberto Polo (born in Havana, Cuba, on August 20, 1951) is an American art historian and theorist, visual artist, collector, advisor, connoisseur, and philanthropist. Biography At an early age, Roberto Polo revealed a talent as a visual artist, exhibiting his work in major art museums and galleries. Thanks to his knowledge of art history and theory, he also revealed a talent for identifying exceptional art and gemstones from many periods and origins. Roberto Polo was educated at the Corcoran School of Art, where he was appointed professor at the precocious age of sixteen, and at Columbia University. At the age of twenty four, he conceived and organized the now landmark exhibition Fashion as Fantasy, featuring works especially created by fifty four exhibitors, including David Hockney, Robert Motherwell and Andy Warhol. Roberto Polo was instrumental in founding Citibank’s Fine Art Investment Services, the first department of its kind in the banking industry. In 1981, he left Citibank and became an independent art and gemstone investment advisor. During this period, he formed collections of French eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century fine and decorative arts as well as of gemstones, described by Le Journal des Arts as ‘anthological’. In 1988, the French Republic bestowed on him the medal of Commandeur de l’ordre des Arts et de Lettres for his contributions to French art and culture. In the same year, he suffered a Kafkaesque judicial affair from which he rose in 1995, according to The New York Times, as ‘the wonderful phoenix of the art market’, now championing Historical Design and Modernism independently and through Galerie Historismus. Described by Le Figaro as ‘The Eye’ and by Architectural Digest as ‘The Trendsetter of the Art Market’, Roberto Polo continues to follow his edict that one should only acquire art which was revolutionary in its time. In 2011, Frances Lincoln Limited, London, published a 688-page art book entitled Roberto Polo: The Eye, authored by the reputed museum curators and professors Werner Adriaenssens, Daniel Alcouffe, Françoise Aubry, Thomas Föhl, Guido Giovannini-Torelli, Léon Lock, and Odile Nouvel-Kammerer. This book explores Roberto Polo's visual evolution through a selection of over three hundred masterpieces spanning four centuries and magnificent gemstones from the extraordinary collections which he has formed. Illustrated with over four hundred colour photographs this book is an insight into the man described by Art & Auction as ‘one of the ten people who have made a difference in the art market’ and an illuminating account of his forty years of collecting activity.

Bibliography Roberto Polo: The Eye by Werner Adriaenssens, Daniel Alcouffe, Françoise Aubry, Thomas Föhl, Guido Giovannini-Torelli, Léon Lock, and Odile Nouvel-Kammerer, published by Francis Lincoln Limited, London (ISBN: 9780711232525)