Fernando Botero: A Universal Master in Barcelona
From February 14 through July 20, 2025, the Palau Martorell in Barcelona becomes the epicenter of Latin American art with one of the most significant exhibitions dedicated to Fernando Botero in Spain. Entitled Fernando Botero: A Universal Master, this exhibition is the largest retrospective ever held in Spain of the Colombian artist, who recently passed away in 2023, and brings together more than 110 works from private collections around the world.
The exhibition, curated by Lina Botero and Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz, offers a thematic tour through the artist’s plastic universe, dividing his work into ten sections that reveal both his versatility and the critical depth of his gaze. Visitors will find scenes of everyday life in Latin America, reinterpretations of great Masters of Art History, explorations of the circus, religion, violence and still life, as well as politically charged works that address the conflicts of his native country and the contemporary world.
One of the great attractions of this exhibition is the possibility of seeing, for the first time in Spain, works that until now remained out of the public circuit. Among them is his version of Las Meninas, a free reinterpretation of Velázquez’s classic that had hung for decades in his private studio in Paris. This painting evidences his admiration for the great masters of the Spanish Golden Age and also reveals how Botero resignifies the history of art from his characteristic style: large figures, saturated colors, eloquent silences and a subtle but incisive sense of humor.
Another exceptional piece is Homage to Mantegna (1958), an early work of which little was known until recently. Recently transferred from a private collection in the United States, it was acquired with the support of Lina Botero and Christie’s auction house. This work provides a glimpse into the beginnings of his fascination with volume and pictorial space, and is inserted in the context of his stay in Florence, where he studied at the Academy of San Marco and soaked up the Italian Renaissance. Botero recognized Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello as fundamental influences in his understanding of perspective, composition and silence in painting.
Throughout the visit, the viewer encounters oils on canvas, bronze sculptures, charcoal drawings, watercolors and mixed techniques that reveal a profoundly coherent work, although surprising in its diversity of media. The sculptures, for example, are not mere three-dimensional transpositions of his painting, but pieces that demand another rhythm of observation and appeal to the body from the material. The monumentality, one of the most distinctive features of his language, does not only respond to an aesthetic of excess; it is, rather, a commitment to the tactile, to a presence that imposes itself in space and memory.
But if anything defines Botero’s legacy, it is his ability to combine beauty and criticism, visual joy and social reflection.
In this sense, the exhibition at the Palau Martorell allows us to dimension the thematic breadth of his work and his commitment to history, both his own and that of others. Through the prism of Boterism, the viewer looks at a vision of the world in which the body, power, religion, politics and popular culture are observed with sharpness and irony, without ever losing the sense of beauty or technical rigor.
The architectural context of the Palau Martorell, an elegant 19th century neoclassical building located in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, enhances the exhibition experience. Its recent restoration and its adaptation as a cultural center reinforce the dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity that Botero embodies so well. The exhibition is open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., with audio guides in several languages and reduced rates for students and seniors over 65.
Barcelona has also had a symbolic relationship with Botero for decades. His famous bronze Cat, installed on the Rambla del Raval, has become one of the city’s sculptural icons. The current exhibition at the Palau Martorell not only reaffirms that bond, but deepens it by offering a broad, nuanced and emotive vision of the legacy of one of the most recognizable artists in contemporary art.
