Book Description

This book explores a selection of hundreds of masterpieces from the extraordinary art and jewellery collections formed by the legendary art connoisseur and museum benefactor Roberto Polo. At an early age, Roberto Polo revealed a powerful talent as a visual artist and was described as 'an art prodigy', exhibiting his work in major art museums and galleries in America. Thanks to his profound knowledge of art history and theory, he also revealed an astonishing talent for identifying exceptional art and jewellery from many periods and origins. Educated at The Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., where he was appointed professor at the precocious age of sixteen, and at Columbia University in New York, at the age of twenty-four he conceived and organised the now landmark exhibition Fashion as Fantasy (1975) featuring work especially created for him by artists including Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Paco Rabanne and Guy Bourdin. 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 incorporated PAMG Inc., his company specialised in art and jewellery investment advisory. During this period, he formed magnificent collections of French eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century fine and decorative art, and jewellery, collections described as 'anthological'. In 1988, he suffered a Kafkaesque fall, from which he rose in 1995, defending historical design and Modernism through Galerie Historismus, first in Paris and then in Brussels, where he resides. Often described as 'the trendsetter of the art market', Roberto Polo continues to follow the edict that one should only acquire works of art which were revolutionary in their time and have fallen into oblivion. Exquisitely illustrated with over 300 colour photographs, Roberto Polo: The Eye includes texts by Daniel Alcouffe, former Chief Curator of the Department of Decorative Art of the Musée du Louvre, Dr. Thomas Föhl, member of the Board of Directors of the Klassik Stiftung in Weimar, and Françoise Aubry, Chief Curator of the Musée Victor Horta. This book is a fascinating insight into a man described as 'one of the ten people who have made a difference in the art market' and an illuminating account of his forty years of art and jewellery collecting.