2023-09-15 18:41:11
by STEFANO BUCCI
The great Colombian painter and sculptor who passed away at the age of 91
The famous Colombian sculptor Fernando Botero, universally known for the voluminous figures (men, women, animals and even objects that often bordered on the grotesque) represented in his works (but also sculptor, illustrator, designer). The news is confirmed by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, which defines Botero as the greatest Colombian artist of all time. The death of the Medellin-born sculptor was initially announced by the broadcaster W Radio. Sources close to the painter told El Tiempo that Botero had health problems; He was hospitalized for several days in a medical center, but he himself asked to be transferred home to the Principality of Monaco for treatment. died of pneumonia.
Born on April 19, 1932 in Medelln (his sculptures decorate Plaza Botero in the city center), Botero was (according to the Colombian president Gustavo Petro) the painter of our traditions and our defects, the painter of our virtues, very attached to Italy and in particular in Pietrasanta
where he had a home and studio. A love that finally broke out when, in the Seventies, Botero stayed in Versilia. And a reciprocated love, so much so that in 2001 he was named honorary citizen of Pietrasanta, almost as a tribute to his Italian origins (particularly Genoese). Last May Botero’s wife Sophia Vari, an internationally renowned painter and sculptor, had diedalso very close to Versilia.
Initially inspired by the work of Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros, Botero had already arrived in Italy in the 1950s: in Florence where he studied the fresco technique at the Accademia di San Marco in Florence. After a brief experience of abstract expressionism (Mona Lisa, 1961, New York, Museum of Modern Art), Botero then arrived at rounded and inflated forms, often ironic or subtly caricatured figurations (The President’s Family, 1967, New York, Museum of Modern Art) which would have made him famous and which would have set a precedent (boterism).
Since the Seventies, Botero had also chosen to dedicate himself to sculpture, re-proposing his style in the third dimension. In 2000, a museum named after him was inaugurated in Bogot and the cultural project known as Ciudad Botero was inaugurated in Medelln, which also includes the renovation of the Museo de Antioquia. In conjunction with the eightieth anniversary of his birth, the exhibition Fernando Botero: designer and sculptor (2012) was set up in Pietrasanta, in which eighty works from the artist’s private collection were exhibited, and at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao the The Colombian artist was celebrated with the anthology Fernando Botero. Celebracin.
A fame, that of Botero, not much shared by critics, but which has known no pauses, until the very end: last September 3rd an exhibition had just closed in the headquarters of the Bancaja Foundation in Valencia while on September 20th it will open (until to 6 October) Botero, Larger-than-life at Opera Gallery Dubai.
September 15, 2023 (modified September 15, 2023 | 5:16 pm)
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