Richardson Rambles

June 2025

Hello from Barcelona!  I’ve been enjoying the city, meeting new and old friends, soaking up sun, good food, and wine – all to say I haven’t been writing much.  Consequently, I have a backlog of fascinating information to share.

We attended the Botero retrospective at the Palau Martorell in Barcelona with friends last month.  What a pleasant surprise.  Probably anyone who loves art is familiar with Botero – specifically with his large-scale sculptures of large-scale women with round faces, round musculature, round breasts and hips, and small eyes.  Well, it turns out there’s a bit more to Botero than that.

Fernando Botero Angulo (1932-2023), father of “Boterismo”, is known for colorful, oversized painted and sculpted works.  His art is rooted in his native Columbia, generally depicting daily Columbian life, although at times straying into social critique and abuse of power.  The deceptively simple and agreeable images frequently tell a different story if one looks long enough.  Yet what sets Botero apart is the creation of a unique and original style instantly recognizable and universal.

The current exhibit, curated by his daughter, Lina Botero, and Botero expert Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz, highlights the experimentation that he undertook to evolve his art and his relationship with Italy and Spain, two countries close to his art.  It was in Italy in the 1950’s when, exposed to the painting of the Quattrocento, he developed a love for volume and soon took his art in that direction.

Having lost his father at the age of four, Botero found himself under his uncle’s wing, and when said uncle enrolled the 12-year-old in a school for bullfighting, he began painting watercolors of bullfighting scenes.  By the time he finished the program, his desire to paint was firmly rooted.  At 19, he moved to Bogotà and managed to mount an exhibition quickly.  The Colombian art world received him with open arms, and he began to win competitions, earning both money and acclaim.  Invited to New York, he exhibited there in 1957.  MoMA purchased a piece from him in 1961, and his career only accelerated from there.

By 1972, he had been twice married and had four children.  His place in the artistic world was assured, and he lived between Paris, Spain, and Italy.  Tragedy struck in 1974, when his two-year-old son Pedro died in a traffic accident.  Botero’s second marriage did not survive the loss.  His work reflected his profound grief. 

Perhaps inspired by the death of his son, Botero began to consider the world around him with a critical eye.  Believing that art should bring pleasure, he did not entirely shift his focus, but he did allow his work to serve as a critique, and more importantly, a witness to political absurdities and human rights abuses. 

A prolific worker, Botero produced hundreds of works and donated a significant number of them to museums, particularly in Columbia, further cementing his legacy as a ground-breaking artist with a social conscience.  I must admit, I entered the exhibit with a bit of skepticism.  By the time I left, I had become a fan.

I’ll leave you here with some images and a final commentary from the exhibit:

Botero’s style is based in the sensuality of shape and the exaltation of volume.  Each brushstroke is a reflection of his artistic convictions.  In his world, composed of volumes, each character, flower, figure, fruit, mountain, or animal is painted with the same intention.  Through volume, he often said, one enhances life.  Distortion creates a disequilibrium that forces the artist to re-establish a balance, and only through a coherent style can the artist recover the nature of the thing distorted.

Marie-Antoinette according to Vigée Le Brun, 2016.  Part of the “According to” series honoring earlier artistic masters.

La Duquesa de Alba according to Goya, 1998.

Homage to Mantegna, 1958, a reimagining of Andrea Mantegna’s fresco in the Ducal Palace of Mantua.

The Arnofinis according to Van Eyck, 2006. 

Pedro, 1971, the artist’s deceased son.

Pedrito, 1981. Another image of the artist’s son.

Despite his strong belief that the purpose of art should be to celebrate life, on two occasions Botero felt compelled to document human rights abuses.  Stating that his duty as a human and an artist was to bear witness to atrocities, Botero painted two series showing the violence that occurred in Columbia in the late 90’s and the abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib in 2005.  Noting that while art may not have the power to change society, it can serve as a powerful reminder of the abuse of power, as it did with Picasso’s Guernica and Goya’s The Third of May 1808.

Mother and Son, 2004.

Abu Ghraib #70, 2005.

I’ll leave you with a happier image from Botero’s Circus series, which he described as a universal theme wherein anything was possible, a place where the poetry of vibrant color and inherent sadness nonetheless brings joy to children and adults throughout the world.

Elephant, 2007.