Fernando Botero

Biography

Fernando Botero is the most successful and renowned Latin American artist alive today. Best known for his extravagantly rounded figures and voluminous still-life paintings, Botero helped lead a revival of representational painting at a time when abstraction dominated the critical and curatorial worlds. Born in Medellin in 1932, his work is a blend of classical European art and vibrant Latin American folk culture.

Fernando attends primary school and is awarded a scholarship that enables him to continue his education at the Jesuit secondary school in Medellín. His uncle, a passionate devotee of bullfighting, sends him at age twelve to a school of tauromachy, where he remains for the next two years. The bullring is the main subject of Fernando’s early drawings; his first recorded painting is a watercolour of a toreador.

In 1948 Botero shows his work in public for the first time in an exhibition in Medellín of work by artists from the province of Antioquia. At age eighteen, he begins to draw illustrations for the Sunday supplement of El Colombiano, Medellín principal newspaper.

The Mexican school of mural painting, whose main exponents were Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco, plays a major part in shaping Botero’s ideas about art at this time. From early childhood he has also been fascinated by pre-Colombian art as well as by the highly painted altarpieces and figures of saints in the Latin American style known as ‘Colonial Baroque’.

It is not until 1948 that information about contemporary European art begins to trickle through to Medellín; before this there is not a single modern painting to be seen in the town.

Botero encounters the work of Picasso for the first time in a history of modern art written by the Argentinean critic Julio Payro. His nude drawing for El Colombiano provokes a formal rebuke from the headmaster of his school. Shortly afterwards, he is expelled for publishing an article entitled, ‘Picasso and Nonconformity in Art’ in the same supplement.

1950 – 1952

Botero is admitted to another school, the Liceo San Jose in the nearby town of Marinilla. He supports himself by making illustrations for newspapers, and completes his secondary education in 1950.

In January 1952, Botero moves to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, where he quickly gains access to the avant-garde circle that meet at the café Automatica. The other painters in the group discuss the latest developments in art, taking a particular interest in abstraction.

Only five months later after his arrival in Bogotá, Botero holds his first one-man exhibition, of twenty-five watercolours. gouaches, drawings, and oil paintings, at the Leo Matiz gallery. Heartened by his success of selling a number of his works, he spends the summer on a painting holiday in Tolú on the Caribbean coast and on the islands in the Gulf of Morrosquillo. The pictures from this period reflect the influence of Gauguin and Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods.

In August 1952, his painting On the Coast, earns him second prize in the Ninth Salon of Colombian artists, held at the Biblioteca Nacional in Bogotá. The prize money of 7,000 dollars, together with his savings, enables Botero to travel to Europe. He buys a third-class ticket on a boat to Barcelona, traveling with a group of other artists to the city where Picasso spent his youth. However, after only a few days Botero leaves for Madrid, where he enrolls at the Academia San Fernando. In the Prado, he encounters the work of the Spanish masters Veláquez and Goya, which he uses as models for his paintings.

At the end of his second term in Madrid, he travels to Paris. His former interest in Moderism has by now waned, and he is disappointed by the French avant-garde art that he sees in the Musée National d’Art Moderne. He spends nearly all his time in the Louvre, studying the Old Masters.

1953 – 1954

Botero travels to Florence and enrolls at the Academia San Marco. At a time when Tachsim was celebrating its first triumphs in Europe, Botero begins to work in the manner of a Renaissance artist. He copies Giotto and Andrea del Castagno. For the next eighteen months he also studies the technique of fresco painting.

1955

In March Botero returns to Bogotá. Two months later he exhibits twenty paintings, the artistic result of his stay in Florence, at the Biblioteca Nazionale. The exhibition is a resounding flop and Botero’s work is vehemently condemned by the critics, who take their lead from the latest developments in the Paris art world. Not a single picture is sold. In December he marries Gloria Zea.

1956

The couple move to Mexico City, where his first son, Fernando is born. While working on Still Life with Mandolin, Botero hits on the idea of modifying form by exaggerating its volume. In Mexico he is able to make a living by selling his pictures.

1957

Botero travels to Washington D.C. for the opening of his first one-man show in the USA organized by the Pan-American Union. During his visits to the museums, he makes his first encounter with Abstract Expressionism. He also makes the acquaintance of Tania Gres, who would later open a gallery in Washington and who was to become an important source of financial and moral support. In October, he wins second prize at the Tenth Colombian Salon for his painting Counterpoint.

1958

Botero’s daughter, Lina, is born. At age twenty-six, Botero is appointed professor of painting at the Bogotá Academy of Art, a post he holds for the next two years. His prestige slowly increases and he is widely regarded as Colombia’s foremost young artist.

For the eleventh Colombian Salon, Botero submits his largest painting to date, a work entitled Camera degli Sposi (Homage to Mantegna), which is loose interpretation of Mantegna’s frescoes in the Ducal Palace in Mantua. The jury initially rejects the picture. However, following a storm of protest, the jury meets again to reconsider and decides to award the first prize to Botero.

In October Camera degli Sposi and the painting Sleeping Bishop go on view in Botero’s first exhibition at the Gres Gallery in Washington D.C. The exhibition is a major success with nearly all the paintings sold at the opening. In the same year Botero takes part in the Guggenheim International Award exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

1960

From February to April, Botero works on a fresco commissioned by the Banco Hipotecario in Medellín. This is his only large scale work in fresco. His second son. Juan Carlos, is born in Bogotá. In October, he travels to Washington D.C. for the opening of his second exhibition at the Gres Gallery.

Botero leaves Colombia for the third time and moves to New York. His means are slender and his English is rather poor. At this time Abstract Expressionism is still dominant in the New York art world. With the closure of the Gres Gallery, Botero loses a major source of support. His marriage to Gloria Zea is dissolved.

1961

In June the Callejan Gallery in Bogotá holds an exhibition of Botero’s work. At the recommendation of Dorothy C Miller, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the museum acquires the first version of Mona Lisa, Age 12, the only figurative picture it buys that year.

1963

While Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is on show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art exhibits Mona Lisa, Age 12.

1964

Botero marries Cecilia Zambrano. His painting, Apples, wins first prize in the Salon Intercol De Artistas Jovenes at the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art.

1965

With The Pinzon Family Botero’s style reaches full maturity. The compacted often earthy tones of his early work are increasingly replaced by delicate, decorative colours applied in thin glazes. Regarding his subject matter, he explains, ‘Although I have painted a number of portraits, I don’t like working directly from models. They cramp my style and take away my liberty. I prefer to be completely free, to follow my own imagination.’

Botero studies the art of Rubens and paints four pictures after the latter’s portraits of Hèléne Fourmet.

1966

In January, Botero travels to Germany for the opening of the first major European exhibition of his work, held at the Staaliche Kunsthalle in Baden-Baden. The exhibition is later shown in Munich, at the Galerie Bucholz. In September, the Galerie Brusberg in Hanover shows a selection of pictures. Three months later he has his first exhibition in an American museum – Recent Works at the Milwaukee Art Centre – is the subject of an enthusiastic review in Time Magazine.

1969

In March, Botero exhibits a selection of paintings and large format charcoal drawings at the New York Centre for Inter-American Relations. In September, he has his first exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Claude Bernard.

1970 - 1971

Botero’s third son Pedro is born in New York, The first years of the boy’s life are lovingly documented by his father in a series of pictures. Beginning in March, an exhibition of eighty paintings is shown in several German museums including the Staaliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; Kunstverein Düsseldorf; Kunstverein, Hamburg; and Kunsthalle, Bielefeld.

1972

In February, Botero holds his first exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in New York.

1973

After thirteen years, Botero leaves New York for Paris. He makes his first sculptures.

1974

In April, Botero has his first retrospective in Bogotá, featuring works from the period 1948 to 1972. At age four, Botero’s son Pedro is killed in a car accident in Spain in which the artist himself sustains serious injuries. After Pedro’s death, Botero uses the image of his son in many of his drawings, paintings and sculptures.

1975

Botero divorces Cecilia Zambrano.

1976

Following a major retrospective of his work at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Caracas, Botero is awarded the Andres Bello Medal by the President of Venezuela. Throughout this and the following years, Botero devotes all of his energy to sculpture. He marries Sophia Vari.

1977

In recognition of his services to Colombian art, Botero is awarded the Boyacá cross by the regional government of Antioquia. The Museo de Zea in Medellín opens a new room bearing the name Sala Pedro Botero, which contains sixteen works donated by Botero in memory of his son. In October, Botero’s sculptures are shown for the first time in an exhibition organized by the Galerie Claude Bernard at the Paris Art Fair.

1979 – 1981

His first American retrospective, organized by Cynthia Jaffee McCabe, is held at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. in 1979. The Galerie Beyer in Basel stages an exhibition of watercolours, drawings and sculptures.

Botero has a retropective in Tokyo and Osaka in 1981 and an exhibition of watercolours and drawings at the Gabbiano gallery in Rome.

1983

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acquires Dance in Colombia. Botero makes a set of illustrations for Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which appears in the first issue of Vanity Fair.

He establishes a workshop in Pietrasanta, a small town in Tuscany that is noted for the quality of its foundries and henceforth spends a few months of the year working on his sculptures there.

1984

Botero donates a number of sculptures to the Antioquia Museum in Medellín and eighteen paintings to the National Museum in Bogotá. For the next two years, he works almost exclusively on painting scenes from the bullring. He has the ambition to become the supreme painter of the corrida, ‘so that when people think of bulls they will automatically think of my pictures’.

1985

In April, Marlborough Gallery in New York holds the first exhibition of Botero’s bullfight paintings. An exhibition of his work is also shown at the Museo di Ponce in Puerto Rico.

1986

In January, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Caracas mounts a retrospective of Botero’s drawings from the previous four years. Further retrospectives are staged in Munich, traveling to Bremen, Frankfurt, and Madrid in 1987 and several Japanese cities, including Tokyo.

1987

In December, the exhibition La Corrida, comprising of eight-six oils, watercolours and drawings on various aspects of the bullfight is shown at the Castello Sforzesca in Milan.

1988

La Corrida travels to the Castel dell’Ovo, Naples, and the Albergo delle Povere, Palermo. A retrospective is shown at the Casino Knokke le Zoute, Belgium.

1990

The Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland, organizes a retrospective of Botero’s paintings, drawings and sculptures. His most recent sculptures are the subject of an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in New York.

1991 – 1992

Botero’s sculptures are exhibited at the Belvedere Castle in Florence (1991), the Casino in Monte Carlo (1992) and along the Champs Elysées in Paris.

1993

For the first time in New York’s history, a major outdoor exhibition, organized by the Public Art Fund, is presented along Park Avenue. Botero in New York consists of sixteen monumental bronze sculptures – Maternity, Woman with Mirror, Cat, Bird, Reclining Venus and Adam and Eve.

1994

Botero in Chicago, along Michigan Avenue, opens in the spring. Botero in Madrid, along the Avenue Paseo de Recoletos, opens in the summer. The same year Botero narrowly escapes an attempt to kidnap him in Bogotá.

1995

In Medellín a bomb blows a hole through a huge Botero bronze sculpture, Bird. Twenty-seven people are killed and many more injured. Botero presents the city with another dove sculpture, to stand alongside the mutilated remains of the first. He hopes that his native city will one day move away from endemic drug war and violence towards ‘culutre, hard work and peace’.

1996 – 1998

Botero has major exhibitions at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Monterrey, Mexico.

1999

Botero exhibits 30 monumental sculptures in the Piazza della Signoria, along with smaller sculptures and paintings at the Sala d’Arme in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. This is a particularly significant exhibition, since Botero is the first artist to be invited to exhibit works at the Piazza della Signoria. His works are shown beside artists such as Cellini, Giambologna and Michelangelo.

2000

Boteor donates a huge collection of art to two museums in Colombia, one in the capital, Bogotá, the other in Medellín, his native city. The collection includes more than 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Botero, as well as 100 works by Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Dégas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Chagall and Klimt. This single gift significantly increases both the quantity and quality of art in Colombia’s museums. Speaking of his gift, Botero says, ‘I remember when I was young in Colombia, there were no original pictures by important artists. You had to look at black and white reproductions. The first time I saw a real painting was in Barcelona’.

2001

Mexico City organizes a massive exhibition covering fifty years of Botero’s life as an artist, 50 Años de Vida Artística. The Marlborough Gallery, New York, also has a big spring exhibition. In autumn, Botero exhibits seventy of his more important paintings at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and ten sculptures are shown along the elegant water promenade Strandvägen.

2002 - 2003

There is the exhibition Botero à Dinard in Brittany.

 A retrospective at the Arken Museum for Modern Art, Copenhagen.

An exhibition of monumental sculptures along the Grand Canal and paintings at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice.

The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Holland mounts an exhibition of Botero’s work

Another exhibition of recent works at the Musée Maillol, Paris.

A show of marble sculptures and charcoal drawings at Galerie Hopkins-Custot.

2004

Botero begins a new series of works inspired by his reaction to the news about the treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Botero in Singapore opens at the Singapore Art Museum together with monumental sculptures displayed at the Esplanade.

2005

The Palazzo Venezia in Rome, Italy, shows the first works of the Abu Ghraib series.

2006

Kunsthalle Würth at Schwäbisch Hall organizes the first large-scale retrospective in Germany after twenty years.

2007

The exhibition, The Baroque World of Fernando Botero, which is organized by Art Services International, Virginia, is to travel to nine venues within the Untied States; after starting at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts in Quebec. It will last from 2007 – 2011.

In September, an exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. 

2009

In June, there is an exhibition of his work at the National Museum of Art, Deoksugung, Seoul.

2010

The Pera Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, showcases an extensive collection of Botero’s works.

2011

First ever comprehensive presentation in Austria of his work. Held at the Bank Austria Kunstforum.

An exhibition of his new religious works at Marlborough Gallery, New York, entitled Via Circus: The Passion of Christ.

2012

In March, Botero held  his biggest ever exhibition in Mexico City.