1932-2023
Born in Medellín, Botero arrived in the fifties at the inflated volume that would define everything he made afterwards. It is not a comment on obesity but a formal decision: expanding the figure to fill the frame, borrowed from the Italian Quattrocento he studied in Florence.
His subjects are Colombian domestic life, the church, the circus, the bullring, and versions of canonical paintings recast in his own proportions. He worked with equal commitment in bronze, and his sculptures stand in public squares from Madrid to Singapore. He died in Monaco in 2023.
