Why did Fernando Botero die?

People, animals or fruits: For the artist Botero, everything was round, soft and voluminous. This unfailing style made him famous. He always remained loyal to his native Colombia; He has now died at the age of 91.

Fernando Botero once explained in an interview: “I come to the studio around 10 o’clock and work all day. I only take a short break from my work to go to a restaurant for lunch.” At night, he reads a book, watches some television, and is in bed at 23:00. “This is my rhythm. Even on Saturdays and Sundays. Every day. And so far I have not found anything that gives me more pleasure and pleasure than painting.”Botero loved his job to the fullest. His hometown of Medellín once demolished an entire block of houses for him. Otherwise, there would be no room for 23 bronze figures weighing tons, which clearly bear the signature of the great master: there is a large woman reclining on a pedestal, a fat man on a fat horse, and then again an extremely extremely cat. large, squat, wide, thick paws.

An ode to the joy of life

At Botero, everything was round, soft and voluminous. “Botero is a rock star, an icon of the city. He made Medellín and Colombia known all over the world” explains Juan Esteban from Medellín. If a painter can paint a simple orange so that everyone can recognize his handwriting, he is a great painter, Esteban said, as Botero always said to himself.

Botero’s oranges are lush, bold and colorful, ostentatious, sometimes almost grotesquely beautiful. owner; An unmistakable style in America, Europe or Asia. However, Botero always emphasized that his characters are not fat. Oversized, plastic and voluminous, it is always a tribute to the exuberance and sensuality of life in his native Latin America.

Botero liked to describe himself as the most Colombian of Colombian artists. “I had an intuitive interest in volume. Nobody told me volume could be important,” he said in an interview. “I needed to express the power and sensitivity of my work in exaggerated volumes. And that has guided me throughout my life.”

Gala on the Champs-Élysées in 1992

The artist was born in modest circumstances on April 19, 1932, in Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city. His uncle sent him to a bullfighting school, but Botero preferred to draw animals rather than fight them. He began working as an illustrator and soon won his first art award.

With this money, he went to Europe and studied the artists and works of the Renaissance in an autodidactic manner. Inspired by this, Botero developed the style that made him unique from 1965 onwards.

His exhibition on the Champs-Élysées in 1992 turned the whole of Paris upside down. Botero later explained: “No artist had ever been invited to exhibit on the Champs-Élysées before.” “And to this day I’m the only one. And because no one had ever done this before, I couldn’t believe it until the other day.”All the traffic had collapsed because trucks with cranes stopped everywhere. “There were 32 monumental statues, which was a lot.”