Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero has passed away

Fernando Botero Angulo, the renowned Colombian painter and sculptor whose voluptuous, cartoonish figures won worldwide acclaim, died in Monaco on September 15 at the age of ninety-one. His death was attributed to complications from pneumonia, according to his close friend Mauricio Vallejo, co-owner of the Art of the World gallery in Houston. Fernando Botero was known for his works that played with volume and scale, transforming robust characters into light figures, where a curvy woman could hold a tiny cigarette with small, tight lips, or a monumentally curved musical instrument displayed a tiny sound opening. His works addressed themes ranging from wealth and greed to sensuality, pleasure and human rights atrocities. His enormous, rounded sculptures, with their welcoming expressions, adorn some of the world's most famous avenues, from Park Avenue in New York to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

In an interview with Artforum magazine in 1985, Botero stated: "I believe I was elected to do this work. I did not choose to make art the way I do with the idea of surprising people. Such a notion would quickly become a cliché and lose its ability to play honestly and communicate in a personal and direct way, which is what I'm trying to do."

Fernando Botero Angulo was born in Medellín on April 19, 1932, being the middle child of three brothers. His father, a salesman who traveled on horseback, died when Fernando Botero was just four years old, leaving his mother, a seamstress, to raise the family. An uncle showed interest in Fernando Botero and sponsored his attendance at bullfighter school, which he quickly left when he finally had the opportunity to face a live bull. He attended a Jesuit school on a scholarship, but was expelled for writing a laudatory essay on Jesuit's work. Pablo Picasso, considered irreligious by the school’s priests. At sixteen, he saw his first work published in the Sunday supplement of the popular Medellín newspaper, El Colombiano. After completing public high school, he worked for two years as a set designer before moving to Bogotá in 1951. A few months after arriving in the capital, he held his first solo exhibition.

In the following years, he traveled, living in Madrid, Paris and Florence, before returning to Colombia in 1955. The following year, he moved to Mexico City, where he developed his characteristic style, which would become widely known as Boterismo.
Botero's rotund, monumental forms, often accompanied by tiny figures such as a watching frog or a spiraling butterfly, generated a warm reception from the public and at the same time horrified critics.

New York curator Dorothy Miller acquired her 1959 painting "Mona Lisa, Age Twelve" in 1961 for the Museum of Modern Art, where it was displayed in contrast to Leonardo da Vinci's original Mona Lisa, which was being displayed in the city in season. Fernando Botero commented on this in an interview with Ingrid Sischy: "They hung it in a great position, and it received a lot of comments. After that, my work was seen a little, but my first big gallery exhibition only happened in 1972. It was the last time I I received a serious critical response from the New York press. From then on, when I had exhibitions, there was total silence. It was as if I were an outcast. One critic in particular came to see my work and had to stand in front without looking, because he said that it made him sick. From the public, I received the opposite attention."

In the 1970s, Fernando Botero expanded his work to include sculptures, something he had attempted a decade earlier but could not afford, working this time in bronze, marble and cast iron rather than the acrylic and resin he had been forced to use. use your first attempts. Due to the monumental size and smooth, curved forms of these works, they quickly became highly sought after by cities, companies and institutions looking for public works.

Fernando Botero lived in New York from the 1960s and later moved to Paris, returning regularly to Colombia, but only for short periods of one month, as the unrest generated by drug trafficking took hold of the country from of the 1980s. In the early 2000s, the artist addressed cartel violence in some of his works, anticipating the 2005 series that would finally earn him critical recognition. This series depicted the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, using its characteristic chubby figures in terrifying positions. The result was the humanization of people who had long been portrayed as animals by the US media, government and military.

In 2000, Botero donated more than a hundred of his own works, in addition to a large part of his collection, which included works by Picasso, Marc Chagall, Robert Rauschenberg and several French impressionists, to the Central Bank of Colombia. These works were used to establish the Museo Botero in Bogotá, and he also donated several works to the Museum of Antioquia in his hometown of Medellín around the same time. The works depicting Abu Ghraib were donated to the University of California, Berkeley, in 2007.
With his donations, as with his art, Botero always had the public in mind. In an interview with Huffington Post in 2015, he stated: "The donation I made to Colombia, with my collection and many of my works, is one of the best ideas I've ever had in my life. The public's pleasure is the best reward." Fernando Botero's departure leaves a void in the world of art, but his legacy will endure through his works that enchanted and provoked reflection in millions of people around the world.