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Cindy Polemis is an art historian and an independent lecturer. She has a B.A in History from Oxford University  and as a mature student she graduated from Birkbeck College, London University with a B.A  and then M.A.  in History of Art. She spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for BBC World Service. Since 2016 she has been an official art guide at Tate Modern and Tate Britain and has lectured independently. She is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society and a regular lecturer for Art Historical London and The Royal Overseas League. She has worked as the Visual Arts correspondent for Standpoint Magazine in the UK. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th century European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She is an official art guide for both Frieze and Frieze Masters art fairs in London.

Cindy loves to share her passion and enthusiasm for art with her audience in an engaging and accessible way:her lectures are stimulating and fun but she always sends her audience away thinking differently about what they have seen and heard. Cindy was a trustee at London’s Museum of the Home, previously known as The Geffrye Museum, which re-opened in 2021 after a major refurbishment.

She loves gardening, and is interested in highlighting the connections between art history and the history of garden design which she brings to life in walking tours she conducts at Kew Gardens in London.

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Bespoke Art Tours

Cindy can curate private bespoke art tours in public and private galleries and special exhibitions throughout London and beyond. She works with  clients directly in a personal and engaging way to suit their interests. She is also happy to structure art tours which are tailor made for younger audiences. Her aim is to bring every art work alive with extensive historical  and anecdotal  knowledge. Some of her recent tours have included 'The Disruptive Power of Art' examining a selection of works in the permanent collection of Tate Modern; 'From Plate to Palette': the depiction and symbolism of food in art;  and 'Painting in a Man's World: how female artists  have succeeded in making their mark through history’. Duration of tours can be from 2 hours to  all day.



photo courtesy of Ross Mason at Firstsite,Colchester

Lectures Talks and Articles

  • The Energy of Exile: French Artists in London 1870-1904

  • The Stories of Art: A Young Person’s Tour of the National Gallery

  • 1932: Picasso's 'Year of Wonders'

  • Art After 1945: The Creation of a New Visual language

  • The Disruptive Power of Art: Modern and Contemporary Art after World War Two

  • From Plate to Palette: A History of the Depiction of Food in Art- lecture series

  • Food for Thought: single lecture on food symbolism in art

  • Turner’s Modern World

  • Will the Real Andy Warhol Please Stand Up

  • Did Britart Change the World?

  • Here’s Looking at You: A History of Portraiture- also as three part lecture series

  • The Stuff of Nightmares: How Artists have explored the Symbolism of Dreams and Nightmare Visions

  • Picturing the City

  • Do Not Adjust Your Eyesight! The Discombobulating World of Op-Art

  • Miniatures:Tiny Treasures Close to our Hearts

  • Are you a Cat person or a Dog Person? Dogs and Cats in Art

  • Paris in the Belle Epoque

  • Let’s Hear it for the Girls!: Britain’s Leading Contemporary Female Artists who Should be Household Names

  • Hilma af Klint: Europe’s First Abstract Artist?

  • Surrealist Women

  • The Artists Who Spoke to the Dead: Spiritualism and Theosophy and the Creation of an Abstract World (three part lecture series)

  • Hogarth and Europe

  • Painting Now: How this Time Honoured Medium is the Art Form of Choice for Young Emerging Artists

  • Walter Sickert: The Master of Menacing Drama

  • Northern Lights: Spotlighting Four North European Artists and their Role in Defining Turn of the Century Modernism

  • Cezanne: Tensions and Contradictions of the ‘Father of Modern Art

  • Women Who Made Modernism: Paula Modersohn Becker,Kathe Kollwitz and Gabriele Munter

  • M.K. Ciurlionis: The Fantastical Worlds of Lithuania’s Most Celebrated Artist

  • Pioneering Female Photographers

  • There’s Still Life Yet in Still Life

  • John Singer Sargent’s Eye for Fashion

  • The Art of Rubbish: From Trash to Treasure

  • Toulouse Lautrec’s Paris

  • Articles

  • Gerhard Richter:The Art of Seeing and Looking Away, 18/09/2019, standpointmag.co.uk

  • William Blake:Method and Madness, November 2019

  • Pieter de Hooch:From the Shadow of Vermeer, December 2019

  • Feast and Fast at the Fitzwilliam

  • Van Eyck’s Optical Revolution

  • A Breath of Fresh Paint at the Whitechapel



Profile of Cindy Polemis at:

www.fabulousfabsters.com/cindy-polemis-bespoke-art-tours-london

click on symbol below.