Fernando Botero's entire career in an exhibition featuring 67 large-format works

The entire career of Fernando Botero (Medellín, Colombia, 1932) in one exhibition: opened at the Centro Centro in Madrid, the exhibition Fernando Botero. Celebración, an exhibition that, from Sept. 17, 2020 to Feb. 7, 2021, aims to retrace his artistic experience with 67 large-format works created during his 60-year career, and from different private collections.

The exhibition is cirated by Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz together with the artist’s daughter, Lina Botero. The paintings follow a thematic path, divided into seven sections, with the aim of offering visitors a summary of six decades of work. Botero began working in 1948 as an illustrator for the newspaper El Colombiano: in 1951 he moved to the Colombian capital, Bogotá, where his first solo exhibition was held. Self-taught, in 1952, when he was only 20 years old, Botero won the second prize of the Salón Anual de Artistas Colombianos. That same year he moved to Madrid, where he studied at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In the following years he traveled to France and Italy, then after a return to Bogotá in 1955 the move to Mexico, then in 1960 a new move to New York. After nine years the new move to Paris, after which, in 1983, the artist opened his studio in Pietrasanta, where he still returns today. His exhibitions have been held all over the world.

The exhibition begins with a section devoted to South American production, with works that stem from the artist’s childhood and youth memories and tell of families, traditions, dances, but also of violence, the violence that shook Colombia in the second half of the 20th century. Then there are sections on religion, bullfighting, as well as the Versiones section, where some tributes to the masters of Western painting are displayed: works that, in Botero’s style, revisit masterpieces by Piero della Francesca, Jan van Eyck, Raphael, Ingres, Goya and others. And then again a section devoted to still life, and finally a seventh room dedicated to watercolors on canvas, displaying the Colombian artist’s most recent unpublished works. A sort of return to his origins, since Botero began by devoting himself to watercolors.

For all information about the exhibition you can visit the Madrid Center’s website.

Image: Fernando Botero, Arnolfini según van Eyck, detail (2006)

Fernando Botero's entire career in an exhibition featuring 67 large-format works

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