Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero was born in Medellin, Colombia in 1932. Globally renowned for his unique handling of volume, shape and colour, Botero is an artist of both popularity and critical acclaim. Having spent two years at a specialist school for matadors in Colombia as a child, Botero always maintained a fascination for the sport, and for the theatre and traditions of his native land. Deriving broad and exuberant inspiration from such diverse sources as clowns, the corrida and Piero De la Francesca, Botero has been a major force in art since the 1950s. The artist first showed at the Guggenheim in New York in 1958, the same year he provided illustrations for a novel by his friend, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In 1963, the artist presented his Mona Lisa, Age 12 at New York’s MoMA, a counterpoint to the Mona Lisa which was being shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later works were to draw on influences of Albrecht Dürer and Edouard Manet among others. Attracted to forms and mass, yet with a passionate love for the sunshine, history and contradictions of his homeland, Botero’s style of boterismo is unmistakeable. The artist now divides his time between Paris, France, New York, and Tuscany. Botero was twice included in the Venice Biennale, in 1958 and 1992. His works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the museum dedicated to him, the Museo Botero in Bogotá.