Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero Biography
Botero was born in MedellÃn, Colombia, whose Catholic churches still maintained the Baroque style. His upbringing was marked by isolation from the traditional art venues such as museums and other cultural infrastructures. His Colombian heritage thus informs him. In 1980 Fernando Botero won the Salón de Artistas Colombianos and traveled to study arts in France.
Fernando Botero - personal life
Fernando Botero was married to Gloria Zea (former Colombian Minister of Culture) and father of controversial politician Fernando Botero Zea and Lina Botero (former TV presenter and actress).
Fernando Botero style - paintings and sculptures
Botero paints and draws in a style somewhat similar to Pablo Picasso whilst Fernando Botero lived in Dinard, Brittany, 1922, for example "Deux femmes courant sur la plage" (The Course). Fernando Botero strives in all his work to capture an essential part of himself and his subjects through color and form. His work includes still-life and landscapes, but Botero tends to primarily focus on situational portraiture.
Fernando Botero and "fat" objects
His paintings and sculptures are, on first examination, noted for their exaggerated proportions and the corpulence of the human figures and animal figures. The "fat people" are often thought by critics to satirize the subjects and situations that Botero chooses to paint. Botero explains his use of obese figures and forms as such: "An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it." Fernando Botero is an abstract artist in the most fundamental sense of the word, choosing what colors, shapes, and proportions to use based on intuitive aesthetic thinking. This being said, his works are informed by a Colombian upbringing and social commentary is woven throughout his work.
Fernando Botero - Donation and Controversy
In early 2004, Botero donated a series of 23 oil paintings and 27 drawings depicting different elements of the country's longlasting violence, created between 1999 and 2004, to the National Museum of Colombia, where they were first publicly displayed between May 4 and June 11.
Fernando Botero - recent years
In early 2005, Botero revealed a series of 50 paintings that graphically represent the controversial Abu Ghraib incident, expressing the rage and shock that the incident provoked in the artist. The works were initially presented at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, and later in Germany and Greece. In October 2006, they were displayed at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City, their first showing in the United States. The Abu Ghraib series is currently being exhibited at The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California in Berkeley through the end of March 2007. Botero has stated that Fernando Botero does not plan to sell the paintings, but instead intends to donate them to museums as a reminder of the events depicted within.
Browse a collection of the reproductions of the most famous paintings by Fernando Botero:
