Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero (Colombia 1932 - Monaco 2023)

Fernando Botero was a Colombian painter and sculptor, widely recognized for his unique and unmistakable style. His artistic career began in 1948 as an illustrator, and in 1951 he moved to Bogotá, where he held his first international exhibition at the Leo Matiz Gallery. In 1952, he left for Madrid, where he studied at the Academia de San Fernando, and between 1953 and 1955 he deepened his knowledge of fresco painting and art history in Florence, influences that would shape his work from then on.

Upon returning to Colombia, Botero exhibited at the National Library in Bogotá and began teaching at the School of Fine Arts of the National University. That same year, he traveled to Mexico, where he studied the political murals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, incorporating their social themes and political critiques into his own visual language. In the late 1950s, he visited the United States, an experience that led him, years later, to return and develop a body of work in New York. Despite his interest in Abstract Expressionism, his primary inspiration came from the Italian Renaissance, a period that influenced his approach to form and composition.

During this time, he began to expand his figures and compress the space around them, creating the voluminous style that would become his trademark. This use of volume not only characterizes imaginary portraits and satires of classical works, but also offers a perceptive critique of society. With numerous exhibitions in the Americas and Europe, Botero won several awards, such as the First Intercol at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá, and his works are featured in major museums around the world. Since the 1970s, he has divided his life between Paris, Madrid, and Medellín.

His satirical works depict politicians, military personnel, religious figures, musicians, and nobles with rotund bodies and immobile expressions, creating scenes charged with irony. At first glance humorous, his paintings often offer social critique and profound political reflections. Botero is considered one of the most attentive observers of Colombian reality, with works that symbolize figures immersed in clientelistic systems, depicted as well-fed but silent, with their mouths closed.

For the artist, color has always played a central role in composition, illuminating and bringing life to the monumentality of forms. Although some interpret his aesthetic as a glorification of obesity, Fernando Botero's work is, in fact, a provocative reinterpretation of classical ideals of beauty, especially those of the Renaissance.