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Fernando Botero(1932-)Born in Medellin, Colombia, Botero attended a school for matadors from 1944
to 1946 but his true interest was in art. He first exhibited his paintings in
1948 in Medellin with other artists from the region. At that time he was
influenced by the work of Mexican artists Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro
Siqueiros. In 1952 Botero began studies at the Academy of San Fernando in
Madrid, Spain, visiting the Prado Museum daily. He went to Paris in 1953,
studying the old masters in the Louvre Museum. Later that year, he traveled to
Florence, Italy, where he studied such Italian masters as Giotto and Piero della
Francesca.
When Botero moved to New York City in 1960, he had developed his trademark
style: the depiction of round, corpulent humans and animals. In these works he
referenced Latin-American folk art in his use of flat, bright color and boldly
outlined forms. He favored a smooth look in his paintings, eliminating the
appearance of brushwork and texture, as in Presidential Family (1967). In works
such as this, Botero also drew from the Old Masters he had emulated in his
youth: his formal portraits of the bourgeoisie and political and religious
dignitaries clearly reference the composition and meditative quality of formal
portraits by Goya and Velázquez. The inflated proportions of his figures,
such as those in Presidential Family, also suggest an element of political
satire, perhaps hinting at the subjects' inflated sense of their own importance.
Botero’s other oil paintings from the period include bordello scenes and nudes,
which possess comic qualities that challenge and satirize sexual mores, and
portraits of families, which possess a gentle, affectionate quality.
Botero’s famous oil paintings include:
Reclining Woman with a Book
Picnic in the Mountains
Loving Couple
Still Life with Fruits
Woman Putting on Her Brassiere
The House of Madrique
Dancers
Dancer at the Pole
The Arnolofini Marriage
The Death of Luis Chaleta
Odalisque
Indian Girl
Florero
Frutas
Still Life with Cake
Orange
The Rich Children
The Lovers
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