The Baroque World of Fernando Botero

Alternately wry and deeply emotional, Colombian artist Fernando Botero blends beauty, violence, tradition, and modernity in his effort to convey the glories and miseries of contemporary life, particularly in Latin America. With 100 paintings, drawings, and sculptures drawn from the artist's private collection the exhibition examines Botero's indebtedness to European artists such as 19th century French painters Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix and Italian Renaissance artists Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca. It also acknowledges his interest in Mexican artists Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and José Clemente Orozco and the great Spanish painter Diego Velazquez. In his earlier works from the 1950s, Botero's struggle to define his own style is still evident, but eventually the artist's mature style in the form of enlarged volumes and distinctive, buoyant figures emerges. The Baroque World of Fernando Botero offers insight into the artist's many worlds: be it his role as a social critic, re-interpreter, cultural force, or product of the artists who preceded him.

The Baroque World of Fernando Botero