Fernando Botero, before the opening of the exhibition “Botero, dialogue with Picasso”, in Aix-en-Provence, November 22, 2017. BORIS HORVAT / AFP
“My colors are those of Latin American still life. “My characters are those of the Latin American middle class, whores, soldiers…” Fernando Botero confided to Le Monde in 1985. The Colombian painter and sculptor, who just became famous for his figures with voluptuous forms, is dead, as announced on Friday September 15 by Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
“Fernando Botero, the painter of our traditions and our mistakes, the painter of our virtues, is dead,” he declared on the X network (formerly Twitter), without specifying the place and date of death. “The painter of our violence and our peace. “Of the dove that was rejected a thousand times and placed on its throne a thousand times,” added President Petro, alluding to one of the artist’s emblematic animals.
Influence of pre-Columbian art
Fernando Botero was born in Medellín in 1932. Francophile, made an Officer of the Legion of Honor at the French Embassy in Bogotá in 2002, he is considered one of the greatest Latin American artists of the 20th century.
As the son of a sales representative, he came into contact with art at an early age. At the age of 15, he was already selling his bullfighting drawings outside the gates of the Bogotá bullring. “When I started, in Colombia it was an exotic job that was not well respected and had no future. When I told my family that I planned to pursue painting, they replied: “Okay, but we can’t help you,” said the highest rated Colombian artist in the world. .
After his first solo exhibition in Bogotá in the 1950s, he traveled to Europe and stayed in Spain, France and Italy, where he discovered classical art. His work is also influenced by the pre-Columbian art and frescoes of Mexico, where he later settled.
His career began in the 1970s when he met the director of the German Museum in New York, Dietrich Malov, with whom he organized several successful exhibitions. “Completely unknown, without a contract with a gallery in New York, I was then contacted by the biggest art dealers in the world,” he said.
Fernando Botero poses in front of his painting “La Fornarina, after Raphael” at the Pera Museum in Istanbul on May 3, 2010. MURAD SEZER / Portal
Extraordinary dimensions and “defenders of volume”
The extraordinary dimension of his art, which would become his trademark, was revealed in the 1957 painting “Still Life with Mandolin”. He then painted the mandolin’s central sound hole (opening) too small compared to the size of the instrument. He explained: “Between the small detail and the generosity of the exterior design, a new dimension emerges, more volumetric, more monumental, more extravagant.”
For the artist, the term “fat” did not fit his figures. A lover of the Italian Renaissance, he described himself as a “defender of volume” in modern art. His sculpture, also characterized by gigantism, occupied a very important place in his career and developed mainly in Pietrasanta in Italy. For years he spent his life between this corner of Tuscany, New York, Medellin and Monaco, where he continued to create.
The artist, who said he never knew what he would paint the next day, was inspired by the beauty but also the pain of his modern art-infused country. His sculpture, also characterized by gigantism, occupied a very important place in his career and developed mainly in Pietrasanta in Italy.
In front of a sculpture by Fernando Botero in Plaza Botero in Medellin (Colombia), April 15, 2022. JUAN BARRETO / AFP
In 1995, a bomb at the foot of his sculpture “The Bird” in Medellín killed 27 people. Five years later he donated a replica called “The Bird of Peace.” His work shows guerrilla fighting, earthquakes and brothels. He also painted a series about the prisoners of the American prison at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The artist was also a major supporter, whose donations were estimated at more than $200 million. He donated many of his works to the museums of Medellín and Bogota, as well as dozens of paintings from his private collection, including Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Miro…
On his 90th birthday, his hometown dedicated an exhibition to him to say “thank you.” His works can also be seen outdoors in many cities around the world, as exhibitions in public spaces represent a “revolutionary approach” of art to the public for the artist.
The “Maestro” was married three times, most recently to the Greek sculptor Sophia Vari, and suffered the death of one of his children in a car accident at the age of four.
His work, consisting of more than 3,000 paintings and 300 sculptures, shows his insatiable urge to create. Just the thought of going without brushes “scares me more than death,” he said.
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