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Colombian Fernando Botero does not hide his addiction to fat people, Botero depicts exclusively fat people, he has everything fat - people, horses, dogs, even apples. Influential art critic Roberta Smith disparagingly called them "rubber inflated dolls."

"I try to influence people's feelings and sensuality with forms, volumes," - the artist justifies, - meaning by sensuality not only voluptuousness and eroticism

Obesity became for him a measure of beauty, an ideal, his creative credo. Botero's works, be it painting, sculpture or graphics, are easily recognizable, and if you have seen them once, you will never forget.

Painting and sculpture of Botero in the world is recognized too seriously, as they say, "for a lot of money." The author takes advantage of this, releasing a huge number of works in circulation, all the time returning to the same subjects and themes. Because of this, the “growth of the master” is not visible in his paintings, if you do not know the years of creation of many works, then the paintings painted with a difference of 10-15 years look like works done in one year.

Colombian artist, master of painting of the grotesque-traditionalist direction, close to "naive art". On his colorful canvases, kitsch and folkloric flavor coexist with the Italian Renaissance and Colonial Baroque.

Fernando Botero Self-portrait with flag

Fernando Botero was born in the city of Medellin (Colombia), known in the world for its cartel of drug dealers, in the family of a businessman. His family lost their fortune, and his father died when the future artist was still very young. He attended the Jesuit School.
His childhood dream was to become a bullfighter. In 1944 he was sent to the school of matadors for several months (recording these impressions in his first drawings on bullfighting).

F. Botero Fight 1988

F. Botero Four dwarf bullfighters 1988

F. Botero Torrero 1991
F. Botero Picador 2002

F. Botero Bullfighting 1991

F. Botero Pica 1997

Nevertheless, at the age of 15, he surprised all of his family with the news that he intended to become an artist, which did not fit into the rules of his conservative family, where art could be a hobby, but not a profession. Arriving in Bogotá (1951), he met local avant-garde artists who were inspired by Mexican revolutionary art.

Botero, as an illustrator, gradually achieved the fact that his drawings on various topics were drawn up in articles in the newspaper El Colombiano. But then he decided to leave for Europe in search of new knowledge.
Traveled to Spain (1952). This was his first trip outside his homeland. He reached Spain by ship. Already in Madrid, he enrolled in the art school of San Fernando, was shocked by the paintings of D. Velazquez and F. Goya.
In his work, there are numerous reminiscences of Velazquez and Goya.

F. Botero Self-portrait as Velazquez 1986, Beyeler Gallery, Zurich

After some time, he came to Florence, where he studied at the Academy of San Marco (1953-1954) with Professor Bernard Berenson. There he became acquainted with Italian Renaissance art.
Later, in 1952, he returned to his homeland and organized his first opening day at the Leo Matis gallery. But, in general, the young artist did not stand out much among the hundreds of his talented compatriots. His paintings were so diverse that visitors initially thought it was an exhibition of several artists. The range of artists who influenced his first paintings ranged from Paul Gauguin to the Mexican painters Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. True, the young self-taught from a town in the Andes never saw the original works of these artists, as well as others. His acquaintance with painting was limited to reproductions from books.
In the same 1952 he took part in the competition of the National Art Salon, where he took second place with his work "By the Sea". In 1956 he visited Mexico.

He developed his own characteristic style in the second half of the 1950s. Until 1955, his main subjects were ordinary men and horses, then he had not yet discovered either "fat women" or monumental sculptures to which he owes his worldwide fame. They "came" as if by accident, when one day in Bogotá in his "Still Life with Mandolin" the instrument suddenly acquired unprecedented dimensions. And from that moment Botero found his theme. I didn't find a mandolin, so I imagine the same one, but a guitar and another still life.

F. Botero Guitar Chair
F. Botero Still life with watermelon

Elements of the Italian and Spanish Renaissance-baroque, as well as the Latin American baroque, coupled with iso-folklore and kitsch in the spirit of "naive art" and even features of primitivism, constituted a bizarre fusion in Botero's work.
Objects and figures appear in his painting and graphics emphatically lush, smugly swollen, dormant - this magical trance recalls the provincial stagnant and at the same time "magical" atmosphere of the stories of J.L. Borges and the novels of G.G. Marquez ...

F. Botero Lovers 1968

F. Botero Male model in studio 1972
F. Botero Maid 1974

CYCLE "STREET"

F. Botero Street 1965
F. Botero Street 1979

F. Botero Street 2000

In no other theme do Botero's volumetric forms appear so aggressively as in nude female images; no other motive of his artistic world remains in memory as long as these overweight figures with exaggeratedly plump hips and legs. It is they that cause the strongest feelings in the viewer: from rejection to admiration.

F. Botero Letter 1976

F. Botero Beach

F. Botero Seated Woman 1976
F. Botero In the bedroom 1984

F. Botero Bather
F. Botero In the bathroom 1989

F. Botero At the window 1990
F. Botero Seated Woman 1997

Despite the fact that Botero most often refers to the genre portrait, the theme of crime, military conflicts and bullying also appears in his work.
The soft humor characteristic of his art is sometimes replaced by satire - anticlerical, for example, Dead Bishops (1965, Gallery of Modern Art, Munich) or aimed at Latin American military dictatorships, such as the Official Portrait of the Military Junta (1971, private collection, New York). I did not find the specified paintings, but the reproductions presented below reflect the given theme.

F. Botero I Walk the Hills 1977
F. Botero Cardinal 1998

FROM THE CYCLES "MILITARY DICTATORSHIP" AND "MAFIA"

F. Botero Untitled 1978

F. Botero Death of Pablo Escobar

In the late 90s, Botero painted a series of paintings addressing the ruthlessness and cruelty of warring groups selling drugs (remember that Colombia is a country where even the entrance to a haberdashery shop is guarded by a powerful spotted handsome man with a gun).

FROM THE SERIES "MAFIA"

F. Botero Slaughter of the Innocents 1999

F. Botero Colombia Massacre 2000

F. Botero Hunter 1999
F. Botero Widow 1997

F. Botero Demonstration 2000
F. Botero Consolation 2000

Not spared Botero and the supreme power of Colombia, referring to this topic three times. I am personally interested in the fate of these canvases and the opinions of the portrayed about the artist's work.

F. Botero President 1987
F. Botero First Lady 2000

F. Botero President 1989
F. Botero First Lady 1989

Botero always responds to what is happening in the world. He recently created a series of paintings that chronicle the abuse of prisoners by the US military at the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison. The series "Abu Ghraib", according to Botero, continues the theme of cruelty and violence in the world. Below are several works from this series.

But back to the artist's biography!
In 1964 Botero married Gloria Cea, who later bore him three children. Later they moved to Mexico, where they experienced great financial difficulties. It is appropriate to place here the artist's works dedicated to love and family.

F. Botero Love 1982

F. Botero Slumber 1982

F. Botero Family 1989
F. Botero Couple 1995

F. Botero Family 1996
F. Botero Colombian family 1999

F. Botero Picnic 1999

F. Botero Love couple

This was followed by a divorce, and then the artist moved to New York, sometimes visiting Paris. Money quickly ran out, and his knowledge of English left much to be desired. Then the artist recalled his "European" experience and began, as then, to rewrite great works, which he then sold to visitors to museums and galleries.
Some of his works are freer in the manner of writing, but in any case, the plots go back to classical, well-known images, although they are invariably gaining a parodic character. I specially place the originals with Botero's paintings so that you can feel the difference.

F. Botero Mona Lisa 1977
Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa 1503-05

F. Botero Mademoiselle Riviere Ingra 1979
Jean Dominique Ingres Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere 1805

F. Botero Imitation of Piero della Francesca 1988
Piero del Francesca Portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro second half of the 15th century

F. Botero Sunflowers 1977
Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers 1888

At the same time, Botero worked on his own works, seeking to be admitted to the Malbro Gallery, which happened in 1970, where the artist appeared for the whole world. Soon Botero returned to Europe, and this time his arrival was triumphant. Since 1983 he lived in the Tuscan town of Pietrasanta.
These were his themes and plots in the 80s.

F. Botero Ball in Colombia 1980

F. Botero A Man Drinking Orange Juice 1987

F. Botero British Ambassador 1987
F. Botero In the park

F. Botero Adam 1989
F. Botero Eva 1989

F. Botero Melancholy 1989
F. Botero Ballerina at the bar

Botero works in different countries of the world: in his house in Paris he paints large canvases, in Tuscany (Italy) he spends the summer with his sons and grandchildren, creates his huge sculptures,
on the Cote d'Azur Monte Carlo, creates his smallest works in watercolors and ink, in New York he paints larger paintings in pastels and watercolors.
His conquest of Paris ended a fifteen-year struggle for success and turned Master Fernando Botero into one of the most important living artists in the world.
In 1992, Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, during campaigns for the ennobling of Paris, chose Botero, not even a Frenchman, to compose an exclusive exhibition on the Champs Elysees. No other artist had ever received such an honor.
Since then, various cities around the world have invited Fernando Botero to showcase his works to give more dimension to their celebrations. This was the case in Madrid, New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Monte Carlo, Florence and many others. Other cities have acquired his works for very large sums, while others are in line.
On the other hand, how, if not caricatures, at best friendly caricatures, can you call his portraits of famous artists?

F. Botero Picasso. Paris. 1930th year. 1998 year
F. Botero Portrait of P. Picasso 1999

F. Botero Portrait of J. Ingres 1999
F. Botero Portrait of E. Delacroix 1998

F. Botero Portrait of G. Courbet 1998
F. Botero Portrait of G. Giacometti 1998

His works are listed as some of the most expensive in the world, such as the painting "Breakfast on the Grass". This is a paraphrase of the famous painting of the same name by the founder of Impressionism Edouard Manet, painted by Fernando Botero in 1969. Only if Manet had dressed men in the company of naked women, Botero had a monumental lady dressed, and a man lay naked on the grass and smoked a cigarette. At Sotheby's, the painting was sold for one million US dollars.

F. Botero Breakfast on the grass 1969

At the turn of the 20th century. became the most famous of the Latin American artists of his generation. Already, Botero's creative heritage is huge - it is almost 3 thousand paintings and more than 200 sculptures, as well as countless drawings and watercolors.
In Russia there is his work "Still Life with Watermelon" (1976-1977), donated by the author to the State Hermitage Museum and exhibited in the Hall of Art in Europe and America of the 20th century.
The artist's generosity is legendary in Colombia. For example, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Bogotá, he donated a collection of paintings valued at $ 60 million. As a gift to his hometown of Medellin, the artist donated 18 sculptures shown at exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, New York, Chicago, and almost a hundred paintings that formed the basis of the exhibition at the Arts Square. In total, the artist's donation to Colombian collections exceeded $ 100 million. It is not without reason that Semana, an influential magazine in Colombia, named Fernando Botero among the ten most popular personalities.

Four evenings "spent" with Botero's painting somehow reconciled me with the artist's work. Either because I recognized myself in some of Botero's heroes, or because there were so many pictures that they no longer caused surprise and misunderstanding. In exactly the same way, at one time I did not love, but mentally accepted the square women of Picasso. And I would like to end the post with the "series" of double pictures collected from Botero, which I mentioned at the beginning.

F. Botero Cat on the Roof 1976
F. Botero Thief 1980

F. Botero Man on a Horse
F. Botero Man on a Horse 1998

F. Botero The Rape of Europa 1995
F. Botero The Abduction of Europe 1998

Sculptures by Fernando Botero rus_lynx wrote in August 23rd, 2014

Original taken from rus_lynx in Sculptures by Fernando Botero

I got acquainted with the work of Fernando Botero half a year ago when I was in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami. The gaze did not just accidentally fall on the bronze sculptures, it was literally captured by them. Huge monumental figures were the main decoration of the lobby: majestic, calm, admirable. Did they inspire fear? Not at all. On the contrary, there was a feeling of affection and sympathy.
Judge for yourself:

I had never seen anything like it before and, seized with passion, began to search for information about the sculptor.
Fernando Botero is a Colombian sculptor who lives to this day. He studied in art schools in Spain and Italy, one of his favorite artists was Velazquez (perhaps it was he who influenced the fact that his sculptures and paintings express restraint, prompting us to reveal what is hidden behind the outer shell).
Botero at the first stages of his career did not have a specific style and painted pictures of different styles. His search for himself reminds me of early Picasso, when he, drawing from early childhood, tried different styles until he found his own, such a recognizable style that brought him worldwide fame. So Botero, who comes from a poor family, was looking for his own way and finally found his inimitable style in depicting people and objects as if swollen, inflated, static.

Worldwide fame came to Botero when, along with painting, he began to create sculptures "in the Botero style": huge, bronze statues expressing a state of calm. Now his statues are worth millions of dollars and famous cities of the world are queuing up to purchase his sculptures to decorate city parks and squares.

I think it is precisely this "trademark" state of detachment and peace, along with grotesque amazing forms, that makes his work so popular. And that is why it resonated in my soul - his figures seem to be in a state of meditation, which means peace and harmony. That is, they are in the very state that I strive for, listening to my inner feelings, doing yoga and searching for myself and my path. If you look at these statues, then breathing gradually becomes even and calm. And suddenly the meaning of life is revealed to you - it is in harmony. And harmony is in tranquility.

The lines of Omar Khayyam came to mind:

Who understands life is no longer in a hurry,
He relishes every moment and watches
As a child sleeps, an old man prays,
How it rains and how snowflakes melt.
He sees beauty in the ordinary,
Into the tangled simplest solution,
He knows how to make a dream come true
He loves life and believes in Sunday
He realized that happiness is not about money,
And their number will not save you from grief,
But who lives with a tit in his hands,
He will definitely not find his firebird
Who understood life, he understood the essence of things,
That only death is more perfect than life,
What to know, without being surprised, more terrible,
Than something not to know and not be able to.

The paintings of Fernando Botero, the largest living artist in the world, are in the most prestigious museums in the world, and his sculptures fit into the street interiors of Paris, Rome, New York and other capitals and cities of the world. And yet, not everyone has the opportunity to see "live" the work of this master.
The master's works are easily recognizable: he deliberately makes the figures of his characters disproportionately large, with exaggeratedly curvaceous forms. And it doesn't matter who it is - a gallant general, bullfighter, bishop, child, nun or a person of easy virtue. Even musical instruments, household items, fruits and berries are "pompous" for him. Botero explains it this way: "I try to influence people's feelings with forms and volumes."
The artist's paintings are called so - "boteros", given their unique individual style.
Coming from a simple Colombian family, Fernando Botero had to study and work a lot before his deceptively simple and naive manner appeared, in which achievements from Dürer to Picasso and from pre-Columbian Indian culture to Mexican monumentalists were synthesized.

Fernando Botero was born on April 19, 1932 in Medellin, Colombia. His father, David Botero, was a traveling salesman. He died when his son was only 4 years old.
Fernando was raised by his uncle. Initially, Fernando attended a Jesuit gymnasium, but in 1944, on the advice of his uncle, the 12-year-old boy was sent to the school of matadors.
Then the first youthful drawings appeared. They were bullfighters, bulls, arena - the world of bullfighting.
Already at the age of 16, Botero began to participate in exhibitions in his native Medellin and work as an artist in local magazines in order to earn money for his college studies.
In 1951, Botero moved to the capital of Colombia, to the city of Bogota. Here he closely converges with representatives of the Colombian avant-garde. Fernando writes works influenced by Gauguin and early Picasso.

Then she studied at the prestigious Madrid Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.
In 1953, the artist came to Florence, where he took a course in art history at the university, then thoroughly studied the technique of fresco painting in Venice.
Overflowing with impressions and knowledge, Botero returned to Bogota, but the exhibition of his Italian works in his homeland was not a success. In 1956, the artist married Gloria Zea, and they immediately left for Mexico City. Here, under the influence of Mexican monumental painting, Botero's original creative style began to manifest itself.
His fame as an artist grows, and in 1958 Botero was invited to Bogota as a professor of painting at the Academy of Arts.

In 1960, the artist moved to New York, where he divorced his wife. In the same year, the artist becomes a laureate of the prestigious National Prize. S. Guggenheim, although it was a time when figurative art in America was not held in high esteem.
Botero's famous painting style is already reaching its fullness, and in 1961, despite critical voices from the camp of supporters of abstract art, the Museum of Modern Art
in New York acquires the first painting of a Colombian. It was the painting "Mona Lisa at 12".
Several solo exhibitions of Botero are being held in Washington and New York with great success.
In 1964, the artist creates a new family - he marries Colombian Cecilia Zambrano.

Fernando comes to Europe with his first solo exhibition in 1966.
By the way, the exhibition was first held in Germany (in Baden-Baden, then moved to Hanover).
The artist himself uses his stay in Germany to study the masterpieces of Dürer, Cranach, Grunewald in the museums of Munich and Nuremberg. Then he will interpret some of these paintings in his own style.

Gradually, the fame of the artist from distant Medellin becomes truly worldwide. Exhibitions one after another are held simultaneously in both parts of America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Behind all this is a huge amount of creative work done by the artist. The subsequent years of the master's life are spent in constant travel between Colombia, the USA and Europe.

Finally, in 1973, he finally settled in Paris, where he bought a large workshop for himself. At the same time in Paris, Botero creates his first sculptural works. These were grandiose compositions (mostly made of bronze), into which the heroes of the master's paintings "migrated". The work of the sculptor captured Botero, and he returned to painting only in 1978.
For two whole years the artist returns to his first theme - the theme of bullfighting.
By this time, Fernando Botero already had a large family - from two wives he had four children. As a result of a car accident on vacation in Spain in 1974, the artist's 4-year-old son Pedro dies.

Later, in memory of him, Botero donated 16 of his works to the museum in Medellin. And that was just the beginning.
The artist's generosity is legendary. The Museum of Fine Arts of Bogotá, for example, donated a collection of contemporary painting, which included works from Corot, Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec to Chagall, Dali and Picasso.
And he donated more than 200 works to his native Medellin. If we consider that the cost of Botero's paintings on the world art market reaches a million dollars, then the generosity of the donor becomes clear.
The grateful residents and authorities of Medellin have allocated several blocks in the city center to house a cultural center, which was named "Ciudad Botero" ("City of Botero").
“Maybe now our city will wash away from the shameful glory of the international drug trafficking center, and not the criminal Medellin cartel, but artistic values ​​will define the face of our city in the world,” people said.

In 1999, among the paintings of Botero, works began to appear for the first time, telling about the violence that is shaking his homeland. These are pictures of bloody massacres, endless funeral processions - everything that the country has been living on for over 40 years.
Such is the picture "The Hunter", in which a proud "hunter" with a gun tramples his head ..., no, not the prey, but the person he killed. The artist remarked: "When Colombia becomes a peaceful civilized country, people will look at my paintings and wonder what an irrational, absurd world we lived in."

Many years of hard work have made the masters Fernando Botero one of the most important living artists in the world. Since 1992, various cities around the world have invited Fernando Botero to cooperate in order to showcase his works to give more scope to their celebrations, be it anniversaries or the Olympic Games.
This was the case in Madrid, New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Monte Carlo, Florence, Berlin and many others.
In Russia there is a wonderful sculptural composition Botero - "Still life with a watermelon", donated by the author to the Hermitage, which is exhibited in the Hall of 20th century European and American art.
Acquaintance with the paintings and sculptures of the great and kind master Fernando Botero will never leave anyone indifferent. After all, this is the work of a talented person who loves life, loves people and wishes them all peace and happiness.

Fernando Botero Angulo(Spanish. Fernando botero angulo, R. 1932) is a contemporary Colombian artist.

Biography, creativity

Fernando Botero Angulo was born on April 19, 1932 in Medellin (Colombia). His father was a salesman and died of a heart attack when the boy was only four years old. The mother of the future artist worked as a seamstress and raised three sons. Uncle Fernando helped the family, but the money was still not enough. In addition, the upbringing of children was based on Catholic traditions and hard work, the result of which can be considered the fact that Botero did not visit museums and was not familiar with the main trends in modern art, but he often visited Catholic churches, where he had the opportunity to get acquainted with the works medieval masters.

Fernando Botero received his education first at the Jesuit school, and then at the bullfighting school, where he entered at the insistence of his uncle. However, the career of the matador young Botero was cut short literally in the very first days, when the boy was injured in one of the training fights. Over the next two years, he already painted watercolors, although he continued to study to be a matador - his uncle's influence was still great. In 1946, Fernando dropped out of school, and in 1948, along with several other Colombian artists, he first exhibited his work to the public.

Botero continued his secondary education already in his third school, while working as an illustrator for the newspaper "El Colombiano" (Spanish "El Colombiano") and sometimes publishing articles about other artists, including Picasso. Finding a response among young people, Bogotá turned conservative circles against himself, which led to the fact that he was again expelled from school and as a result he received an education at the Lyceum of the University of Antioquia, where he spent all his earned money on tuition fees. In 1951, Botero moved to Bogota, where his first solo exhibition took place in the same year. Becoming more and more famous in the art circles of the then Colombia, in 1952, together with a group of artists, he toured Spain, visiting Madrid and staying in Barcelona.

Spain made an impression on Fernando Botero, and in the same 1952 he entered the San Fernando Art School in Madrid. Soon, however, the artist moved to Florence, where he studied with Professor Bernard Berenson at the Academy of St. Mark (1953-1954). There he continued to study classical painting and became acquainted with the art of the Italian Renaissance and with the technique of creating frescoes. Later, after returning for a while to Colombia, Botero organized his first personal opening day at the Leo Mathis gallery. Recalling his life in Europe at that time, Botero said: “I spent my last money on museums and art albums, forgetting about food. Admiration for the great Italian masters changed my life overnight. "

Simultaneously with all this, in 1952, the artist participated in the competition of the National Art Salon of Colombia, offering his painting "By the Sea" to the jury and eventually taking second place. Botero's works of that period are extremely heterogeneous, the artist has not yet found his own style and continued to experiment with forms. In addition, it is difficult to single out several masters who influenced him. Among his teachers, he can include both Renaissance painters and his contemporaries. Art critic Robert Smith, criticizing Botero's figurativeism (she wrote about his later works that these are "inflated rubber dolls"), in the artist's early work she saw continuous borrowings, without any structure, imitation of everyone, from Paul Gauguin to Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco. I must say that, getting acquainted with the paintings of new artists, she uses the following approach as a method: she tries to understand the works of which classics the new work reminds her and in what exactly this is embodied. Then she mentally "deletes" everything borrowed and tries to analyze the remainder, i.e. what is theoretically new and, therefore, has a certain "art value". In the case of early Botero, it was almost impossible to find a “new” one, but the number of borrowings and determinants was abnormally high.

In 1955, a significant event happened in the life of Fernando Botero. While working on the next painting ( "Still life with mandolin"), he somewhat modified the shape of the depicted object, making the object deliberately large. This "mistake", however, became the starting point for the formation of the author's style of the artist and laid the foundation for his endless "volumetric" figures, which brought him worldwide fame.

In the same 1955, Boreto married Gloria Zea (English Gloria Zea, later she served as director of the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota (Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota, El MAMBO) and Minister of Culture of Colombia). In 1958, the artist won the main prize at the SALON DE Artistas Colombianos in Bogota, after which his career took off. Soon he began to call himself "the most Colombian of Colombian artists", which found support (especially outside Colombia), and his exhibitions began to be held in Europe and the United States.

Despite the fact that three children (Fernando, Lina and Juan Carlos) were married to Cea, the couple broke up in 1960 and after the divorce, Fernando himself moved to New York, where he lived for the next 14 years. In the early years, there was not enough money, moreover, the artist did not know English well, which only added to the problems. At some point in time, Boreto discovered that there was a demand for paintings "in the style of the old masters" and adapted his style of painting to the Western European "classical" school.

In 1964 Botero began living with Cecilia Zambrano. In 1974, their son Pedro was born, but already in 1975 they separated. In 1979, Botero was in a car accident while his son was in the car. That. at the age of five, the boy died, which was a serious blow to the artist.

In 1970 Fernando Botero managed to get some of his paintings to be exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery. These works in a very short time became extremely popular and when Botero returned to Europe, he discovered that he was a very successful artist. It must be said that the themes of Botero's works are different. Many of his paintings are in one way or another dedicated to Colombia. He depicts both ordinary people ("The Maid", 1974) and politicians ("The President", 1987), mafiosi ("The Death of Pablo Escobar", 1999), etc. His anti-Clerical works are also striking (I Walk the Hills, 1977). In the second half of the 70s, Botero created his own versions of some of the classic paintings ("Mademoiselle Riviere Ingra", "Mona Lisa", "Sunflowers").

In the late 90s, Botero created a number of paintings dedicated to the problems of crime in Colombia ("Slaughter of the Innocent", "Massacre in Colombia"). "The Most Colombian Artist" raises topics that are relevant, and therefore interesting and understandable to the layman. The same "civil" theme is also filled with a series of paintings about the bullying of the military over prisoners in the notorious prison. Abu Ghraib.

Fernando Botero also distinguished himself as a sculptor, having completed several of his "volumetric" figures in bronze ("Cat" in Barcelona). Stylistically, these works can be considered as sculptural images of typical images of the master. One of them (Still Life with a Watermelon, 1976-1977) was donated by the artist to the Hermitage and is currently on display in the Hall of 20th century European and American Art.

In 1992, the then Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, allowed Botero to organize a solo exhibition directly on the Champs Elysees. It should be noted that not a single foreign artist had ever received such an honor.

Currently, various cities invite Fernando Botero to create works for certain city holidays. The artist worked in this way in Madrid, New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Monte Carlo, Florence, etc. In addition, his paintings and sculptures are very popular and are bought for quite a lot of money ("Breakfast on the Grass" was sold for a million dollars).

The last wife of Botero was the French-Greek artist Sophia Vari. The couple currently live in Italy. It is also interesting to note that in his personal life Botero prefers not obese women at all. In an interview, the master said that he "loved three women, and they were all thin." In addition, the artist has always denied that he portrays "fat men", claiming that he simply "draws in volume."

Despite the great demand, Boreto often donates his works. In Colombia, this brought him the fame and love of many fellow citizens. The influential Colombian magazine Semana even included him in the top ten most popular personalities in the country. It is known that, for example, he donated a collection of paintings with an approximate value of $ 60 million to the Museum of Fine Arts in Bogotá (it was Botero's personal collection, which contained works by artists of the 19th-20th centuries), and as a gift to his hometown of Medellin Botero donated 18 sculptures and almost a hundred paintings that marked the beginning of the exhibition on the Arts Square.

Fernando Botero's artistic heritage is enormous. He created about 3,000 paintings and over 200 sculptures. In addition, he owns a huge variety of sketches, drawings and watercolors. The works of this artist are sometimes called kitsch, but, of course, the questions of genre classification remain open. It should be noted that the work of Botero is almost impossible to consider in the context of the development of Western European art in the second half of the 20th century, since the artist himself, even in New York, acted in isolation, almost not reacting to the challenges and responses characteristic of this very contemporary art.