Fernando Botero at Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee
October 19, 2008 - January 11, 2009
The work of Colombian-born artist Fernando Botero is featured in this extensive exhibition at Memphis' Brooks Museum of Art. Influenced by 20th century Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, along with old masters Diego Velazquez and Francisco de Goya, Botero's body of work comments on "colonialism, political instability in Latin America, and the vernacular artistic traditions of the region, as well as European art history" (Brooks Museum of Art).
Botero's distinctive style - flat, bright colors, bold outlines, rotund humans and animals, and minimal brushwork and texture - is at once familiar and detached. Comic and satirical, Botero's paintings and sculptures depict nudes, politicians, families, bordellos and matadors.
"The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" represents the first comprehensive American exhibition of the artist's work in more than thirty years. The 100 paintings, sculptures and drawings are from the artist's private collection.
Visiting the Brooks: 1934 Poplar Avenue, Tel: 901.544.6200, www.brooksmuseum.org
Fernando Botero (Colombian, b.1932) The First Lady, 1989, Oil on canvas, Private Collection
