Bogotá - Fernando Botero, the Man Who Paints Fat People
Bogotá - Fernando Botero, the Man Who Paints Fat People
Colombian artist Fernando Botero is a living legend best known for his robust, inflated forms and exaggerated human figures.
Botero was born in Medellín in 1932. His father was a traveling salesman who traveled throughout
At an early age, Fernando showed artistic talent. At the age of 13, he began to paint scenes of bullfights and sell them in front of the arena for 5 pesos. At 17, El Colombiano, a Medellín newspaper, published his article, "Picasso and the Nonconformity of Art," which revealed Botero’s avant-garde thinking.
2 years later, he moved to 
Like many South American artists, he went to
Botero’s signature painting style emerged in the mid 1960s. In 1969, he presented a collection titled Inflated Images at the
His exaggerated paintings and sculptures portray his native
When asked why he paints “fat people”, he replied, “In art, as long as you have ideas and think, you are bound to deform nature. Art is deformation."
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BOTERO MUSEUM
In 2000, Fernando Botero, the world's best-known and most highly regarded living Latin American artist donated over $100 million worth of art from his personal collection to his native Colombia.
"The man who paints fat people" gave 123 of his own paintings, sculptures and drawings to Bogotá. He also contributed 85 originals fom renown 19th and 20th century masters, including Beckman, Chagall, Degas, Dali, Matisse, Miro, Monet, Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec.
The collection is housed in a beautifully restored colonial mansion located in the heart of Bogotá's most historic and interesting neighborhood, La Candelaria.
I have never enjoyed myself more at a museum. Botero's works make you laugh. As he once said, "There are people who think artists have to be sad, poor, dirty and ridden with tuberculosis. Some artists even try to live up to it. But I think it's silly. I don't have any of that. It's the opposite."
His joy of life and his affection for Colombia and its people shine in every piece. The plump parameters of proportion in his world are innovative and almost always surprising. You end up leaving with a smile on your face and with memories to last a lifetime. Wait...am I really talking about an "art museum?"
If you go to Bogotá, you MUST see this one-of-a-kind place :-D
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