Fernando Botero, the evolution of a master brings together pieces belonging to Enrique Michelsen, a collector who, in the distant 1977, acquired the first of them, a poster dedicated to the World Theater Festival that was held that year in Nancy, France.
As is customary in the thick and colorful Botero universe, the themes of his graphics - whether in small, medium or large format - continue to be bullfighting, religion, the nude or nature, to name a few of his main themes. Like Tolouse-Lautrec, Daumier and Manet before, the Colombian managed to bring the most genuine of his art to the general public that did not enter galleries and museums.
Botero's creative impetus, born in 1932 in Medellín, started from adolescence and it is remarkable that he abandoned the learning of bullfighting to dedicate himself fully to painting, although that spectacle and the - literally - spectacular vision of art no longer they would never abandon him. He once confessed that he has done everything not out of academia, but out of intuition and work: "Out of sheer passion."
Although the influence of Diego Rivera, Rousseau, Velázquez or Goya can be appreciated in him, what we could call his histrionic passion for volume suddenly appeared while he was painting the mandolin in a still life: what grew disproportionately that day in 1956 before his pupils , I would never waver again. And not because he wanted to paint fat and gigantism, but because the volume party was his own visual ritual to celebrate sensuality and beauty. "An exaltation of life," as he described himself.
Enrique Michelsen says that his collection, which began as a hobby, became the document of the artist's life, because his posters reveal the magnitude of Botero's career: “Only by visually touring his posters is it possible to dimension his extraordinary presence in the world Of art".
Marcelo Llobell, Director of the Doral Contemporary Art Museum and co-curator of the exhibition, highlights the importance for the viewer in observing the work of the Master in parallel with the evolution of the art of communication and graphic design in five decades.
Fernando Botero, the evolution of a master has already been exhibited in Long Beach (California-US), Las Vegas (Nevada-US) and Dinard (France) and can now be visited at DORCAM (Doral Contemporary Art Museum) Pop Up Space # 115 from December 15 to February 28. in City Place Doral, Florida.
Ernest Santana
