“My colors are those of Latin American still life. My characters are those of the Latin American middle class, whores, soldiers…”confided Fernando Botero to World in 1985. The Colombian painter and sculptor, who became famous precisely for his voluptuous characters, has died, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on Friday, September 15.
“Fernando Botero, the painter of our traditions and our faults, the painter of our virtues, is dead”he declared on the X network (formerly Twitter), without specifying the place or date of death. “The painter of our violence and our peace. Of the dove rejected a thousand times and placed on its throne a thousand times”added President Petro, in reference to one of the emblematic animals of the artist’s work.
Influence of pre-Columbian art
Fernando Botero was born in Medellin in 1932. Francophile, elevated to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor in 2002 at the French embassy in Bogota, he is considered one of the greatest Latin American artists of the 20th century.e century.
The son of a sales representative, he was introduced to art very early. At the age of 15, he was already selling his bullfighting drawings at the gates of the Bogota bullring. “When I started, it was an exotic profession, in Colombia, which was not well regarded and offered no future. When I told my family that I was planning to pursue painting, they said, “Okay, but we can’t help you.”said the most popular Colombian artist in the world.
After a first individual exhibition in Bogota during the 1950s, he left for Europe, staying in Spain, France and Italy, where he discovered classical art. His work is also influenced by pre-Columbian art and the frescoes of Mexico, where he later settled.
His career took off in the 1970s, when he met the director of the German Museum in New York, Dietrich Malov, with whom he organized several successful exhibitions. “Totally unknown, without even a contract with a gallery in New York, I then began to be contacted by the biggest art dealers in the world”he said.
Extraordinary dimensions and “defender of volume”
The extraordinary dimensions of his art, which would become his trademark, were revealed in 1957 in the painting “Still life with mandolin”. He then painted a mandolin whose central sound hole (aperture) was too small compared to the size of the instrument. Thus, he explained: “Between the small detail and the generosity of the exterior layout, a new dimension appears, more volumetric, more monumental, more extravagant. »
For the artist, the qualifier ” fat “ did not suit his characters. A lover of the Italian Renaissance, he said he was “defender of volume” in modern art. His sculpture, also marked by gigantism, occupied a very important place in his career, developed mainly in Pietrasanta, in Italy. For years he shared his life between this corner of Tuscany, New York, Medellin and Monaco, where he continued to create.
The artist, who said he never knew what he was going to paint the next day, was inspired by the beauty, but also the torments of his country.
In 1995, a bomb placed at the foot of his sculpture “The Bird” had killed 27 people in Medellin. Five years later, he donated a replica called “The Bird of Peace”. His work depicts guerrillas, earthquakes, brothels. He also painted a series on the prisoners of the American penitentiary at Abu Ghraib, in Iraq.
The artist has also been a major patron, with donations estimated at more than $200 million. He donated many of his works to the museums of Medellin and Bogota, and dozens of paintings from his private collection, including Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Miro…
His hometown dedicated an exhibition to him, for his 90th birthday, to thank him. His works are also visible outdoors in many cities around the world, the artist believing that exhibitions in public spaces are a “revolutionary rapprochement” art with the public.
Married three times, his last wife being the Greek sculptor Sophia Vari, the “maestro” suffered the death, in a car accident, of one of his children, then aged four.
The work of Fernando Botero, rich in more than 3,000 paintings and 300 sculptures, demonstrates an insatiable appetite to create. The very idea of abandoning brushes “terrifies me more than death”he said.