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Fernando Botero Angulo (born April 19,1932) is a Colombian figurative
artist, self-titled "the most Colombian of Colombian artists" early on,
coming to prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón de
Artistas Colombianos in 1958ernando Botero was born in Medellín,
Antioquia, Colombia, South America, where the Catholic church adopted
the Baroque style. Throughout his childhood, Botero was isolated from
traditional art presented in museums and other cultural institutes. He
lost his father at the age of 4.
In 1944, after going to a Jesuit school, Botero's uncle sent him to a
school for matadors for two years.
In 1948, at the age of 16, Botero published his first illustrations in
the Sunday supplement of the El Colombiano daily paper and used the
money he received to pay for his high school education at the Liceo de
Marinilla de Antioquia. 1948 was also the year Botero first exhibited,
along with other artists from the region.
From 1949 to 1950, Botero worked as a set designer, before moving to
Bogotá in 1951. His first one-man show occurred at the Galería Leo Matiz
in Bogotá, a few months after his arrival. In 1952, Botero travelled
with a group of artists to Barcelona, where he stayed only briefly
before moving on to Madrid.
In Madrid, Botero studied at the Academia de San Fernando.[5] In 1952,
he traveled to Bogotá, where he had a personal exhibit at the Leo Matiz
gallery. Later that year, he won the ninth edition of the Salón de
Artistas Colombianos.
In 1953, Botero moved to Paris, where he spent most of his time in the
Louvre. He lived in Florence, Italy from 1953 to 1954, studying the
works of Renaissance masters
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:Fernando
Botero
(born April 19, 1932, Medellín, Colom.)
Colombian painter and sculptor. He began painting as a teenager. By the
time he moved to New York City in 1960, he had developed his trademark
style: the depiction of round, corpulent humans and animals. In these
works, his use of flat, bright colour and boldly outlined forms
reflected the influence of Latin American folk art, while his strong
compositions often emulated the Old Masters. In 1973 Botero moved to
Paris and began creating sculptures that again focused on rotund
subjects. Successful outdoor exhibitions of his monumental bronze
figures had been staged around the world by the end of the 20th century.
For more information on Fernando Botero, visit Britannica.com.
(b Medell?n, 19 April 1932). Colombian painter and sculptor.
After attending a Jesuit school in Medell?n he was sent to a school for
matadors in 1944 for two years. He first exhibited in 1948 in Medell?n
with other artists from the region and provided illustrations for the
Sunday supplement of the daily paper El Colombiano at this time.
His discovery of the works of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and
Jos? Clemente Orozco inspired paintings such as Woman Crying
(1949; artist's priv. col., see 1979 exh. cat., p. 25). After studying
at the San Jos? high school in Marinilla, near Medell?n, from 1949 to
1950 and then working as a set designer, he moved to Bogot? in 1951. A
few months after his arrival he had his first one-man show there at the
Galer?a Leo Matiz in 1951, at which time he was working under the
influence of Gauguin and Picasso's work of the 'blue' and 'rose'
periods. In 1952 Botero travelled with a group of artists to Barcelona,
where he stayed briefly before moving to Madrid. From 1952 to 1953 he
studied at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, although he was more
interested in the paintings by Goya and Vel?zquez in the Prado. In 1953
he moved to Paris, where he lost his earlier fascination with the modern
French masters and spent most of his time in the Louvre. He then
travelled to Florence, where he stayed from 1953 to 1954 studying the
works of Renaissance masters such as Giotto, Uccello and Piero della
Francesca.
Biography:Fernando Botero
Studied Bullfighting Fernando Botero was born in
Medellin, in the Colombian Andes, on April 19, 1932. His parents, David
and Flora Angulo de Botero, had been raised in the remote highlands of
the Andes. His father, a traveling salesman
who journeyed on horseback
to outlying
areas of the city, died when Botero was four, and his mother supported
the family as a seamstress. The
second of three boys, Botero attended a Jesuit secondary school on a
scholarship starting at age 12. His uncle also enrolled him in matador
school, which he attended for two years, and the images in his first
drawings come from the world of bullfighting
(a watercolor
of a matador is his first known work). Until he discovered a book of
modern art at the age of 15 he "didn't even know this thing called art
existed," he says. In 1948 Botero decided he wanted to become an
artist and first exhibited his work in a joint show in his native town.
He began working at El Colombiano, Medellin's leading newspaper,
illustrating the Sunday magazine. At this time a period of civil unrest
began in Colombia, and there was a low tolerance for nonconformity
and radicalism. Some of Botero's teachers began to express disapproval
of his work, and he received several warnings about nudity in his
newspaper illustrations. In response he published an article called
"Picasso and Nonconformity in Art" and was subsequently expelled from
the school. He completed his secondary education at the Liceo de la Universidad
de Antioquia in Medellin, graduating in 1950, and continued to
publish articles on modern art. Joined Avant Garde Botero
worked for two months for a traveling theater group as a set designer,
then moved to Bogota, where he met some avant-garde intellectuals and
artists and was influenced by the work of such Mexican muralists as
Diego Rivera, Josè Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Botero's
large watercolor paintings, such as 1949's Donna Che Piange (The
Crying Woman), are from this period. In 1951 he had his first one-man
exhibition - consisting of 25 oils, drawings, watercolors, and gouaches -
at the Galerias de Arte Foto-Estudio Leo Matiz. All the pieces sold,
and he took the proceeds from the exhibit and moved to a small coastal
town to work. In 1952 he moved back to Bogota and mounted his
second show, which earned him 7,000 pesos. He won an additional 7,000
pesos when his 1952 painting Sulla Costa (On the Coast) took
second place in the IX Salon Annual de Artistas Colombianos, sponsored
by the Bogota National Library. He used these funds to move to Europe
and study art. He spent a year in Madrid, enrolled in the San Ferdinando
Academy, and earned a living by copying paintings by Francisco de Goya,
Titian, Diego Velasquez, and Tintoretto
and selling them to tourists. From there he moved to Paris, where he
spent a summer studying old masters at the Louvre. From 1953 to 1954 he
lived in Italy, attending the San Marco Academy in Florence, where he
studied fresco
techniques and copied works by Andrea del Castagno and Giotto,
in addition to creating his own oil paintings. He studied with Roberto
Longhi, who further stimulated
his enthusiasm for the Italian Renaissance. Developed
Distinctive Style In 1955, he returned to Bogota with his new
paintings, 20 of which he exhibited at the National Library. His work
was harshly criticized for not having a style of its own. Few paintings
sold, and Botero was compelled to work at non-artistic employment. This
included an attempt to sell automobile tires and a position doing
magazine layout. At the end of the year, Botero married Gloria Zea and
they moved to Mexico City, where their son, Fernando, was born. In
Mexico City Botero began developing his own style. In 1956, while at
work on a painting called Still Life with Mandolin, he had a
revelation that would change his art. As he sketched a mandolin,
he placed a small dot where a larger sound hole should have been,
making the mandolin suddenly seem enormous. He began to experiment with
size and proportion in his work and eventually developed his trademark
style. The people and objects in his paintings were inflated, giving
them presence, weight, and a round sensuality.
This style, combined with his paintings' Latin American-influenced
flatness, bright colors and boldly outlined shapes, made him one of the
20th Century's most recognizable artists. Gained
Worldwide Recognition Botero's art began to gain recognition
outside Latin America. In 1957 he went to New York City, where the
abstract expressionist movement was thriving. On that trip, he sold most
of the paintings he exhibited at the Pan-American Union in Washington,
D.C. He returned to Bogota in 1958, and his daughter, Lina, was born. He
became a professor of painting at the Bogota Academy of Art, a post he
held for two years. By this time he was renowned as one of the country's
most promising artists. He designed a portion of the
illustrations for the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez's La Siesta del
Martes, and the work also appeared in an important Colombian daily
newspaper, El Tiempo. Amid some controversy, his painting Camera
degli Sposi (The Bride's Chamber) won first prize in that year's
Colombian salon and was exhibited the same year at the Gres Gallery in
Washington, D.C. The Washington show was hugely successful, with nearly
all his work selling on the first day. His work was also shown in 1958's
Guggenheim International Award show in New York. In 1959,
following more exposure to abstract
expressionism in the United States and a phase of personal tumult
during which his marriage was dissolving, Botero's style began to
change. He started painting in a monochromatic
palette and using looser brushstrokes. His El Nino de Vallecas,
painted in this style, was not as popular as his other work at a third
Washington exhibit in October 1960. His son, Juan Carlos, was born that
year, and Botero was nominated to represent Colombia at the II Mexico
Biennial Exhibition. In 1960, Botero moved to Greenwich Village in
New York and began working at a feverish
pace. His work, which celebrated volume and voluptuousness, received a
generally tepid American response at a time when flatness was the craze,
although in 1961 the Museum of Modern Art did buy his painting Monna
Lisa all'età di Dodici Anni (Mona Lisa, Age 12). Despite the cool
response, he kept painting work that was outside the mainstream. His
1962 exhibit at The Contemporaries Gallery in New York was harshly
attacked in what Botero felt was a personal manner. In 1964, he married a
second time, to Cecilia Zambrano. Botero became fascinated
by the art of the Flemish master Rubens and created a number of
paintings inspired by him. By 1965, his painting had acquired greater
sophistication. He began to concentrate on forms rather than individual
brushstrokes, and the surfaces of objects appeared almost sculptural.
His figures used subtle tones and were both monumental and plastic. He
began to apply thin pastel-colored glazes to his canvases. In
1966, Botero's work had its first European exhibition in Baden-Baden,
Germany. He had begun to receive more American recognition, yet he felt
at once that he was more tuned into the European sensibility. From 1966
to 1975, he divided his time among Europe, New York, and Colombia. On a
visit to Germany, he became enamored
of Albrecht Dürer's work, which inspired him to create a series of
large charcoal
drawings, "Dureroboteros," mimicking the German artist's famous
paintings. He also painted works in which he interpreted the styles of
Manet and Bonnard.
In 1969, he mounted his first Paris exhibition and had become a
full-fledged member of Europe's avant-garde by the early 1970s. His
third son, Pedro, was born in New York in 1970. During this
period, Botero's painting moved beyond its focus on sensuous,
sculptural, Latin forms and became harder and more sparkling,
with an underlying darkness. An example from this period includes War,
with its images of corpses. In 1973, he moved from New York to Paris
and began to sculpt.
His son, Pedro, was killed in an automobile accident in which the
artist was also seriously injured, losing a finger and some motion in
his right arm. Botero had painted his son repeatedly and continued to do
so after the boy's death, working him into various paintings. Three
years after his son's death, he dedicated a suite of galleries housed in
Medellin's art museum to his son's memory. He and his second wife
separated in 1975. Sculpting and Politics Botero
devoted himself to sculpting from 1975 to 1977, putting his painting
temporarily on hold. He created 25 metal sculptures that began from
sketches. The subjects were huge animals (including bulls), human torsos,
reclining women, and massive objects, including a gigantic
coffee pot. His sculpture was exhibited at the Paris Art Fair in 1977,
the year he also began to paint again (he paid homage to Velasquez in
paintings depicting the Infantas - Spanish or Portuguese princesses).
His work continued to be shown in galleries worldwide. In 1983 he
established a workshop in an area of Tuscany
renowned for its metalworks, which allowed him to spend several months
each year creating his increasingly large sculptures, which weighed an
average of 3,000 pounds. He also revisited bullfighting as subject
matter for his painting, aspiring
to become the definitive artist on the subject. Botero became
disturbed that his birthplace, Medellin, had become associated with the
drug-trafficking cartel
run by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Botero was said to be incensed
that two of his paintings were discovered in Escobar's
home after the druglord was killed in 1993. Despite Escobar's death,
the violence continued in Medellin, and Botero was the target of a
failed kidnapping in 1994. In 1995 a guerrilla group blew up a
sculpture of a dove, The Bird, that Bonero had donated to the
city. The explosion occurred during a downtown street festival, and 23
people were killed while 200 others were wounded. When taking
responsibility for the blast, the guerrillas called Botero a symbol of oppression.
Botero cast a new dove for the plaza but insisted the remnants of the
original remain so that the sculptures could represent peace and
violence. In 1996 Botero's son Fernando was convicted of accepting
drug money to finance former Colombian President Ernesto Samper's
campaign. Botero did not speak to his son for three years, but they
later reconciled. In 2000, Botero began exhibiting paintings that
reflected the violence in Colombia - images of massacres, torture, and
car bombings, and one depicting Escobar's killing - a distinct departure
from his usual domestic style. In a 2001 article in the Christian
Science Monitor, Botero said, "Art should be an oasis,
a…refuge from the hardness of life. But the Colombian drama is so out
of proportion that today you can't ignore the violence, the thousands
displaced and dead, the processions of coffins." Donated
Work to Colombian Museums In 2000 Botero donated artwork valued
at $200 million to two Colombian museums, the renovated Museum of
Antioquia in Medellin and the cultural wing of the Banco de la Republica
in Bogota. The Medellin site includes an area that was razed to create a
sculpture garden, while the Bogota gift is housed in a 12-room gallery
prepared for the collection. Botero's donation consisted of dozens of
his own paintings and sculptures, as well as some 90 pieces from his
private collection, including 14 impressionist paintings (including oils
by Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Pissarro), four Picassos, and works by
Dali, Miro, Chagall, Ernst, de Kooning, Klimt, Rauschenberg, Giacometti,
and Calder. Botero estimated that by the mid-1990s he had created
1,000 paintings and 100 sculptures. His work had become very popular in
the 1980s and commanded high sums. In 1992 a brothel scene sold for
$1.5 million at auction. His pencil and watercolor canvases have carried
on his familiar themes - portrait-style images of people, brothel
scenes, nudes, and still lifes. He married for a third time, to Greek
sculptor Sophia Vari, and divided his time among Paris, New York City,
Italy, and Colombia. In January 2002 the French ambassador to
Columbia inducted Botero into the Legion of Honor. Botero was honored by
this since France had lent aid to help boost peace between Columbia's
government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
guerrillas.
Columbia Encyclopedia:Fernando
BoteroBotero, Fernando, 1932-, Colombian figurative
painter and sculptor, b. Medellín, one of the most celebrated
contemporary Latin American artists. He attended his native city's
university (grad. 1950) and art academies in San Ferdinando, Spain
(1952-53), and Florence, Italy (1953-55). Botero lived in Mexico
(1956-57) and New York City (1960-73) before moving (1973) to Paris,
where he usually resides. In an age that idolizes slenderness, Botero
has made an art of corpulence. Strongly influenced by the colorful folk
art of his homeland and by such painters as Velázquez,
Goya,
and Diego Rivera,
he attempts to "create sensuousness through form" in his canvases of
rounded, massively rotund figures painted in bright decorative hues and
in his sculptures (notably monumental bronzes) of similarly voluminous
people and animals. Often cheerfully whimsical and sometimes satirical
in approach, his work typically includes individual and family
portraits, nudes, equestrian figures, bullfighting scenes, and still
lifes. Beginning in the late 1990s, as drug-fueled guerrilla warfare
raged in Colombia, his work became much darker (though unchanged in
style) as he created paintings and drawings of the period's kidnappings,
massacres, torture, and death. He has continued exploring these themes
in paintings that depict the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison.
Bibliography See biography by
M. Hanstein (2003); E. J. Sullivan, Botero Sculpture (1986); W.
Spies, Fernando Botero: Paintings and Drawings (1992); A. and J.
C. Lambert, Botero Sculptures (1998); A. M. Escallon, Botero:
New Works on Canvas (2000); P. Gribaudo, Botero Women (2003).
Wikipedia:Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero Angulo (born April 19,1932) is a Colombian
figurative
artist, self-titled "the most Colombian of Colombian artists" early
on, coming to prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón
de Artistas Colombianos in 1958.[1] Biography
Fernando Botero was born in Medellín,
Antioquia,
Colombia,
South
America, where the Catholic
church adopted the Baroque
style. Throughout his childhood, Botero was isolated from traditional
art presented in museums and other cultural institutes. He lost his
father at the age of 4.[2]
In 1944, after going to a Jesuit school, Botero's uncle sent him to a
school for matadors for two years.[3]
In 1948, at the age of 16, Botero published his first illustrations
in the Sunday supplement of the El
Colombiano daily paper and used the money he received to pay
for his high school education at the Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia.
1948 was also the year Botero first exhibited, along with other artists
from the region.[4]
From 1949 to 1950, Botero worked as a set designer, before moving to Bogotá
in 1951. His first one-man show occurred at the Galería Leo Matiz
in Bogotá, a few months after his arrival. In 1952, Botero travelled
with a group of artists to Barcelona,
where he stayed only briefly before moving on to Madrid.
In Madrid, Botero studied at the Academia
de San Fernando.[5]
In 1952, he traveled to Bogotá, where he had a personal exhibit at the
Leo Matiz gallery. Later that year, he won the ninth edition of the Salón
de Artistas Colombianos.[6]
In 1953, Botero moved to Paris, where he spent most of his time in
the Louvre. He lived in Florence,
Italy from 1953 to 1954, studying the works of Renaissance masters.[7]
Styles
Botero's work includes still-lifes
and landscapes,
but Botero tends to primarily focus on situational portraiture. His
paintings and sculptures are united by their proportionally
exaggerated, or "fat" figures, as he once referred to them.[8]
Botero explains his use of these "large people", as they are often
called by critics, or obese figures and forms thus:
"An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why.
You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to
rationalize or even justify it."[citation
needed]
Botero is an abstract
artist in the most fundamental sense of the word, choosing what colors,
shapes, and proportions to use based on intuitive aesthetic
thinking. Though he currently spends only one month a year in Colombia,
he considers himself the "most Colombian artist living" due to his
insulation from the international trends of the art world.[9]
Botero gained considerable attention in 2005 for his Abu Ghraib
collection, which began as an idea he had on a plane, finally
culminating in more than 85 paintings and 100 drawings.[10]
The Circus collection followed in 2008, with 20 works of oil
and watercolor.
In an interview promoting his Circus collection, Botero said: "After
all this, I always return to the simplest things: still lifes."[11] Exhibitions
- "Fund-Raiser" Exhibition with Sonia Falcone at Calvin Charles
Gallery [1] (2003) in Scottsdale,
Arizona.
- "Botero at Ebisu" (2004) in Tokyo.
- "Fernando Botero" (2006) in Athens.
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (2007) in Quebec
City
- "Abu Ghraib Exhibit" (2007) in University
of California, Berkeley
- "Botero: Abu Ghraib" (November 6 - December 30, 2007) in American
University Museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_Museum
- "Botero Abu Ghraib" Exposition (2008) Centro de las Artes I Monterrey,
Mexico
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (May 2008) Delaware
Art Museum, Wilmington
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (June 28 - September 21,
2008) New
Orleans Museum of Art
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (May 30 - August 16, 2009) Colorado
Springs Fine Arts Center
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (October 19 - January 11,
2009) Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (September 12, 2009 -
December 6, 2009) Bowers Museum, Santa
Ana, CA
- "Fernando Botero: Works On Paper, Paintings, and Sculptures"
(February 11 - March 28, 2010) David Benrimon Fine
Art, New York, NY
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