Synopses & Reviews
I am not going turn Colombia's suffering into a business, declared Ferdinand Botero, and so he donated these powerful paintings to the National Museum of Colombia in Bogota rather than sell them. Botero created these intensely personal pieces in private over the last several years and this catalog is the first presentation of them to the art world.
As an artist deeply connected to his native country, these images are quickly seen as Botero's wish for redemption from Colombia's current social crisis. Many of these images will startle the eyes that expect only Botero's joyous, voluminous portraits. The truths in these works overcome all preconceptions of his style: these are startling pictures of civil strife, as intensely realized as Goya's Disasters of War and as spontaneous and immediate as Picasso's Guernica was in 1939.
If Botero's donations were created in grief, the gift itself is ultimately a hopeful one for Colombia. Consistent with his principle, Botero included about 23 other works in his gift-some of which have likewise never been seen or exhibited. This catalog reproduces all the works in the Botero's donacion as a record and testimony to the passion that links the man to his land and his times.
Synopsis
This collection of Fernando Botero's work on the theme of terrorism and violence in Colombia include 23 oil paintings and 27 drawings, which he has donated to the National Museum of Colombia in Bogotá. Botero did so out of the strong conviction that he would not profit from the countrys suffering by selling them. The volume represents a dramatic pictorial documentation of this suffering, and is a tribute to one of the few Colombian artists that has achieved lasting worldwide recognition.
About the Author
Beatriz González is a professor, an art critic and a historian. She is the author of several books and essays on museology, art history and caricature, including
Figari, Reverón, Santa María; Historia de la Caricatura en Colombia (The History of Caricature in Colombia); and
Roberto Páramo: pintor de la sabana (Roberto Páramo: Painter of the Savannah).