Biography of Fernando Botero

In great shape

April 19, 1932
Some consider it, perhaps with some exaggeration, the most representative of the contemporary era painter, others just a clever marketing manager of art, capable of imposing a style of painting like a brand. Impossible not to immediately recognize a painting of Botero, without forgetting that this is perhaps the only case of modern artist finished on postcards, business cards and other bells and whistles. What is certain is that after the death of Balthus, sublime in its abstractness anorexic and a bit morbid, the florid and opulent world of Fernando Botero is the only one able to reflect in a grotesque and metaphorical certain characteristics of cardiomyopathy contemporary society. The artist to fill large colour fields, stretches the form: men and landscapes buy unusual dimensions, seemingly unreal, where detail becomes the ultimate expression and large volumes remain undisturbed. Botero's characters don't experience joy nor sorrow, have the blank stare and motionless, as if they were representations of sculptures. Born on April 19, 1932 in Medellin, in Colombia, Fernando Botero in the years of childhood he attended elementary school and continued his studies at the Jesuit secondary school in Medellin. At twelve years old his uncle enrolled in a school for toreros where he remained for two years (in fact his first known work is a watercolour depicting a bullfighter). Start publishing illustrations for "El Colombiano", newspaper of Medellin, back in 1948, only sixteen. Attending the "automatic" coffee knows some characters of the vanguard colombiana including the writer Jorge Zalamea great friend of García Lorca. Discussions of young painters who frequent the cafes have as main topic abstract art. Later she moved to Bogota where he came into contact with cultural circles, then Paris where he devoted himself to the study of the old masters. Between 1953 and 1954 Botero travels between Spain and Italy and makes copies of Renaissance artists such as Giotto and Andrea del Castagno: a figurative ancestry that has always remained firmly in his artistic expression. After several trips between New York and again Bogota, in 1966 he moved permanently to New York (Long Island), where you dive into a tireless work, trying on developing influence that Rubens was gradually taking in his research, especially on the use of plastic forms. In the early years ' 70 begins to realize his first sculptures. Married in 1955 and then separate with Gloria Zea, had by her three children. In 1963 he married with Cecilia Zambian. Unfortunately in these years his son Pedro, in just four years, dies in a car accident, in which the same Botero is injured. After the drama Pedro became the subject of many drawings, paintings and sculptures. In 1977 inaugurated the Hall Pedro Medellin Museum Botero Zea with donation of sixteen works in memory of his son disappeared. Having been separated from 1976 and 1977 years Zambian is devoted almost exclusively to sculpture, by replaying the most varied subjects: a large torso, cats, snakes, but also a giant coffee pot. Exhibitions in Germany and the USA led him to success and also the weekly "Time" expresses a very positive critique. Then you move between New York, Colombia and Europe, carrying out exhibitions in New York and in "his" Bogota. His style in recent years firmly established realizing that synthesis has long sought by the artist, increasingly celebrated with personnel and equipment in Europe (Switzerland and Italy), in the United States, in Latin America and the Middle East.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.