Cuban multimillionaire, recognized as the best modern art collector in the world

December 24, 2019

The Cuban multimillionaire Roberto Polo has been recognized this week as the world's best collector of modern and contemporary art by Metropolitan Magazine New York. The renowned American publication compiles the ranking known as "Best of Arts" every year.

Art specialists assure that the works in this Cuban multimillionaire's collection are of greater value than the economies of many Third World countries.

"This recognition comes at a very special moment for me (…) I receive this award the same year that the museum bearing my name has opened in Toledo. All of this seems like a dream come true to me. Rarely in life does one achieve these levels of recognition. I have worked hard to internationalize my collection," Polo declared upon learning of this important news.

Roberto Polo owns one of the 20 most influential and anthological art collections of the twentieth century. The Cuban decided this year to temporarily cede more than 500 of his works to the Castilla La Mancha community. Since March 27th, they have been on display in a Toledo museum that now bears the name Centro de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo Roberto Polo.

An expert collector, historian, visual artist and patron of the arts, Roberto Polo was born in La Habana, Cuba, on August 20, 1951. Recognized as an "art prodigy" at age 14 in the United States, he obtained numerous merit scholarships. He studied fine arts, art history and philosophy at the Corcoran School of Art and at American University in Washington D.C., as well as at the Columbia University Graduate School in Nueva York.

He began acquiring art pieces at a very early age. Throughout his life his collections have been dedicated to fine arts, decorative arts and design, precious stones and historical jewelry, spanning five centuries and various continents.

"In my collection I have never been guided by signatures, which are a product of the art market, but by the works themselves. Art and the art market are very different things that rarely coincide," Polo declared at the presentation of the first part of the Colección Roberto Polo. Centro de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo de Castilla-La Mancha (Corpo). "This museum is the dream of a collector by vocation and is nothing more than the first step of what will be a living entity," affirmed the man who has also been an artist and majority shareholder of the Sotheby's auction house. There are 250 works, selected from the 7,000 that he owns and keeps between his house in Bruselas and warehouses in Ámsterdam, París, Londres, Nápoles and Nueva York.