One of the most well-known artists from Latin America, Fernando Botero, has passed away. The 91-year-old Colombian artist passed away at his Monaco home due to complications from pneumonia, according to Lina Botero, his daughter.
“Fernando Botero, the painter of our traditions and defects, the painter of our virtues, has died,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on social media.
Botero frequently portrayed chubby, comical individuals that made fun of Colombia’s upper class in his paintings and sculptures.
He was a Medellin native who once cherished dreams of becoming a matador. His parents were itinerant salesmen.
He lived in Europe and the US for the majority of his life, although he frequently visited Colombia to find inspiration. A week of mourning has been proclaimed in his memory by his home city.
The artwork of Botero is instantly identifiable. He popularized the term “Boterismo” to characterize the voluminous, almost comical figures in his artwork because of their corpulence and minor absurdity.
One painting shows a sleeping Roman Catholic cardinal wearing full clerical attire. Another depicts a snake preparing to pounce on a woman who is posed for a family photo.
Later in his career, Botero began to explore darker themes, such as Colombia’s drug violence. More than 20 people were killed and more than 200 were injured when guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, planted an explosive device beneath his bronze sculpture “Pájaro” (“Bird”) at an outdoor concert in his hometown of Medelln in 1995.
Additionally, he painted Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq torture victims. He claimed that “these works are the outcome of the outrage that the abuses in Iraq produced in me and the rest of the world.”
