While in Bogota recently, I had the great pleasure to visit the Botero Museum and its superb collection of works by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The works are housed in a magnificently restored colonial mansion in the heart of Bogota’s historic La Candelaria area, where the city was founded. The permanent exhibition includes more than 120 of Botero’s own paintings, drawings and sculptures as well as 85 original works by such artists as Renoir, Monet, Degas, Matisse, Miro, Chagall, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec and Dali – all donated by Botero in 2000 when the museum was opened.
I found Botera’s work fascinating, some highlights of which can be seen below, with more in my Gallery. The museum is an absolutely ‘must visit’ treat and should be at the very top of every visitor’s list.
If Botero’s work is unfamiliar, he is among Colombia’s most famous exports. He is the artist who ‘paints fat people’. His love of life and affection for Colombia and its people is revealed in every painting. In the UK, the closest we’ve ever seen to these ‘plump paragons’ is in the work of Beryl Cook from the early seventies. Her work has the very same irreverent sense of fun and ‘joy of life’ captured on the canvas by Botero and she has a similar preoccupation with the ‘larger form’ of her protagonists …..
