Colombian artist Fernando Botero died this Friday (September 15, 2023), aged 91, at his home in the principality of Monaco. Born in the city of Medellín, Botero was the creator of the artistic movement “Boterism” characterized by voluminous characters that made it recognized throughout the world.
“Fernando Botero, the painter of our traditions and our defects, the painter of our virtues, has died. The painter of our violence and our peace. Of the dove 1,000 times discarded and 1,000 times placed on his throne”wrote the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, on social media.
The mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, announced 7 days of mourning for “honoring the memory of the greatest Colombian artist of all time”.
Botero addressed a wide variety of themes in his work, such as reinterpretations of paintings by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Edgar Degas, Latin American street scenes, domestic life, and satirical portraits of political figures.
Botero’s artistic training was self-taught, although he attended the Academia San Fernando, in Madrid, and the Academia San Marcos, in Florence. His first known works are the illustrations he published in the literary supplement of the newspaper El Colombiano, in his hometown.
At the age of 19 he traveled to Bogotá, where he presented his first solo exhibition of watercolors, gouaches, inks and oil paintings at Galeria Leo Matiz, and with the profits he lived for some time in Tolú. During his stay there, he produced the oil painting “Sea front”with which he won 2nd prize for painting at the 9th Annual Salon of Colombian Artists.
His moment of breakthrough came in 1956, while living in Mexico City: the artist painted a mandolin with an unusually small sound hole, causing the instrument to assume exaggerated proportions. Botero was excited by these seemingly new possibilities and this sparked his lifelong exploration of the volume of figures.
In 1977, he exhibited his works for the first time at the Grand Palais in Paris and, in 1978, Fernando Botero painted his own pastiche art (reinterpretation of an existing work) entitled “Mona Lisa”. The work in the characteristic style of “Boterism” paid homage to one of the most famous Western oil paintings created by Leonardo da Vinci.
He was also a talented sculptor who created forms that appear to be an extension of his two-dimensional works. Botero’s sculptural pieces can be found on the streets of Medellín, New York, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid and Jerusalem, among others.
With information from Agência Brasil.
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