Botero. Tribute.

Exactly 20 years ago, the master Fernando Botero gave to the city of Medellín in Colombia a large donation of works of art that today are a source of pride and part of the Colombian cultural
heritage, a collection like few in Latin America that is visited by travelers from all over the world, and that has put Medellín on the cultural horizon of the continent. In sync with this celebration, the Duque Arango Gallery joins this year of commemorations to the great Colombian masters, honoring the life and work of its most important representative and international ambassador, Fernando Botero (Medellín, 1932).

This exhibition is composed of drawings, paintings, and sculptures made by Botero between 1969 and 2018, each decade exemplified with representative pieces from each of these periods.
As if it were a modest retrospective of those six decades, this show includes emblematic works from series such as bullfighting (with El picador and La estocada from 1984), the circus (with two pieces from 2007), portraits, female nudes, still lifes, versions of art history (a tribute to Velázquez from 1975), and his reminiscences of the Antioquia of his youth Furthermore, to complement this broad panorama that can be recognized in its recurring themes, the works presented here are made in almost all the media worked by Botero throughout his life,
ranging from oil on canvas, watercolor, drawing, and pastel on paper, bronze sculpture and a spectacular terracotta bust. This compendium of works (some of which are exhibited for the first time in Colombia) were all made by the artist in his different ateliers in New York, Monaco, Paris and Pietrasanta.

Thus, this exhibition-tribute manages to produce a complete panorama of his production in terms of themes, artistic techniques and periods represented, thus allowing us to understand the process of his tireless and prolific work, and also the cosmopolitan character of his production, that value that precisely He deserves all his recognition and makes him an artist of universal stature.

Christian Padilla
Art historian