Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero
1932 -
Fernando Botero was born in Medellín, Columbia, and is internationally renowned for his paintings and sculptures of people, objects and animals, depicted with an exaggerated volumetric stylization.

Botero attended a school for matadors in his youth before leaving Medellín for Europe, and immersing himself in the history of Western art in Madrid, Paris and Florence, lingering over the Trecento and Quattrocenti – Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca – and the languid sensuality of Peter Paul Rubens and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. He was also influenced by Mexican muralists, as well as by Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso.

During the 1950s, Botero experimented with proportion and size, and he developed his trademark style of exaggerated, rounded volumetric figures after he moved to New York in 1960. He also referenced Latin-American folk art in his use of bright colour and boldly outlined forms. His iconography remained distinctively Latin American – and his subjects were Columbian families, clergymen, generals, circus masters and women. Ranging from young women, mothers and working women from the brothels, they were portrayed with a lush femininity, their ample figures depicted with an extravagant sense of volume. Their luxuriant bodies are a stylized fantasy of the ideal woman in the Latin American world of the 1940s and 1950s - the eternal Everywoman, depicted with smooth brushwork and sensuous colour.

In 1973, Botero moved to Paris, where he worked on bronze sculptures in addition to his painting. He returned to the subject of the corrida or bullring in the 1980s, and his strongly-coloured portrayals of the bullfight exude power. In 2004, Botero turned to political subject matter, exhibiting work which focused on the violence in Columbia stemming from the drug cartel. In 2005, he worked on his Abu Ghraib series, based on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war. However, in 2008 he returned to a lighter subject with a series on circus performers. He continues to work on the themes of his early life, such as the family and maternity.
Botero lives and works between Paris, New York and Tuscany. Botero’s sculptures are in public spaces around the world, and his paintings are in many international museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. He was awarded the International Sculpture Centre’s Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in 2012. A retrospective of his work mounted in 2015 began in Beijing and traveled to Shanghai. Museo Botero, dedicated to his work and his personal collection of other artists is located in Bogotá, Columbia.
HOW TO SELL
AVAILABLE WORKS
HEFFEL’S TOP RESULTS
Femme debout by Fernando Botero sold for $811,250
Fernando Botero
Femme debout
60 1/4 x 35 1/4 in 153 x 89.5 cm
oil on canvas
Estimate: $500,000 - $700,000 CDN
Sold for: $811,250 CDN (premium included)
Post-War & Contemporary Art on Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Toro by Fernando Botero sold for $811,250
Fernando Botero
Toro
58 1/2 x 48 1/2 in 148.6 x 123.2 cm
oil on canvas
Estimate: $450,000 - $650,000 CDN
Sold for: $811,250 CDN (premium included)
Post-War & Contemporary Art on Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Seated Man by Fernando Botero sold for $541,250
Fernando Botero
Seated Man
48 x 37 1/2 in 121.9 x 95.2 cm
oil on canvas
Estimate: $400,000 - $600,000 CDN
Sold for: $541,250 CDN (premium included)
Post-War & Contemporary Art on Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Girl Reading Her Diary by Fernando Botero sold for $301,250
Fernando Botero
Girl Reading Her Diary
51 3/8 x 71 5/8 in 130.5 x 181.8 cm
pastel and graphite on paper
Estimate: $225,000 - $275,000 CDN
Sold for: $301,250 CDN (premium included)
Post-War & Contemporary Art on Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Homme by Fernando Botero sold for $88,920
Fernando Botero
Homme
35 3/4 x 27 3/4 in 90.8 x 70.5 cm
pastel on paper
Estimate: $100,000 - $150,000 CDN
Sold for: $88,920 CDN (premium included)
October 2012 - 2nd Session on Thursday, October 25, 2012
Adelita by Fernando Botero sold for $70,200
Fernando Botero
Adelita
7 1/4 x 7 in 18.4 x 17.8 cm
oil on canvas on panel
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000 CDN
Sold for: $70,200 CDN (premium included)
October 2011 - 1st Session on Thursday, October 27, 2011