Fernando Botero
Palazzo Bonaparte, Roma
September 17, 2024 – January 19, 2025

Starting 17 September, Artemisia and Palazzo Bonaparte in Roma will be presenting the largest exhibition ever dedicated in Italy to Fernando Botero, one of the most important 20th-century artists, a favourite with the general public, and the creator of iconic works. Through the showing of more than 120 masterpieces, the exhibition recounts, in exceptional fashion, Botero’s great mastery in a variety of artistic techniques, from painting to sculpture, while covering his entire artistic development – his exuberant, magical universe. The works on display will also include some exceptional pieces being shown to the world for the first time, like Menina (After Velazquez) and Homage to Mantegna, which had been believed lost.

With the first and most complete painting exhibition ever staged in Italy one year after his death, Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome aims to pay homage to Fernando Botero, one of the artists most beloved by the general international public. The creator of iconic works and part of everyone’s imagery, Botero, born in Colombia in 1932, began painting when still quite young, upon leaving the school for matadors to become an artist. However, he made a name for himself on the international art scene starting in 1961, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York decided to purchase his Mona Lisa, Age Twelve (1959), which was followed by a successful world tour that saw his fame grow exponentially.

The monumental forms of his subjects and corpulent physicality have always been his iconic trademark, the aspect that has made his style unique and immediately recognizable: on his canvasses, Botero represents the opulence of the forms, volume alongside the hyper-expressive use of colour, an abundance that is also positivity, richness, and life. Recounting an artistic career spanning more than 60 years, the exhibition is curated by the artist’s daughter Lina Botero, and by Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz, a leading expert in his work. More than 120 works will be on display in the prestigious rooms at Palazzo Bonaparte, including paintings, watercolours, red chalk, charcoals, sculptures, and some extraordinary works never shown before, on special loan for this exhibition.

Another essential work that, having always been hanging in Botero’s Paris studio, has been unseen by the general public until now is a version of the Infanta from Las Meninas by Velázquez, a painter whom Botero copied during his apprenticeship at the Prado as a young student. Over the course of his life, Botero did numerous versions of the work, and in particular that of the Infanta Margaret of Austria. While maintaining the same aura of grandeur and majesty, Botero’s Menina is more than a simple version; it is a new work, a genuine Botero. Equally essential are his iconic series with classical themes as well as those dearest to him, like his beloved Latin America, the circus, religion, mythology, still lifes and bullfighting; the latter theme is perhaps the most interesting of these because it is interpreted through the filter of the Hispanic tradition deeply felt in art from Goya to Picasso.

more. www.mostrepalazzobonaparte.it