Situated in a renovated colonial house in the heart of Bogota’s historical center, the Botero Museum offers its visitors an art collection of rare quality.
The museum was opened in the Candelaria in 2000 after Colombia’s most famous artist Fernando Botero donated 208 works, 123 of his own and 85 by international artists, to the Bank of the Republic’s art collection. The artistic panorama spans from the mid-19th century up to the end of the 20th century.
Botero said at the opening of the museum, “It gives me infinite pleasure to know that these works belong today to Colombia, to know that students who enter this house will come into contact with the most important artistic currents of our time, contemplating here permanently original works by great masters; to know that lovers of painting and sculpture can come to visit this haven of peace and walk quietly through these halls, leaving them flooded with modern aesthetics.”
His words were no exaggeration, with the first room containing works from almost every notable artist associated with 19th century French Impressionist painting, including Corot, Sisley, Renoir, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
The museum proceeds chronologically, with every room another step forward in time. In the hallway following the Impressionism room is the Salvador Dali sculpture “Retrospective bust of a woman” from 1933. The Spaniard’s famous work, which has elements inspired by mid-19th century French art, serves as the bridge to the early 20th-century art in the next room. Here paintings by famous surrealists, such as Ernst, Dali, and Miro are hung alongside cubist works by Leger, Braque, and Picasso. One wall places a Picasso and a Miro side by side, bringing to life the decades-old debate over who is the greatest Spanish artist.
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In the next room Botero is introduced for the first time. Comparisons between the Medellin artist and other greats emerge as his sketches and drawings are placed alongside those of Degas, Henry Moore, and Lucian Freud. The female form is a major theme in Botero’s work and the drawings in this room suggest where the inspiration came from, and who Botero could have influenced. Degas’ “Woman in the bath” is a highlight. Moore’s “Two reclining figures” is like a Botero only with abstraction taken further. Colombian themes also appear, in contrast to the French landscapes that predominate in the first room. There is a 1949 Fernand Leger drawing entitled “Decorative project for ‘Bolivar’, map of Colombia,” more of a historical document than a painting. The work was part of Leger’s designs for the set of Darius Milhaud’s musical “Bolivar” that opened in 1950 in Paris, about the famous liberator of the Andean nation, Simon Bolivar.
What follows are rooms that allow Botero to take center stage. There are some voluptuous, larger than life fruit still-lifes. The round forms of the fruit are like the sensuous forms of his women. Since Botero considers himself the “most Colombian of Colombian artists,” the viewer may wonder if these forms that are so full of life are reflective of the culture in which they were produced. A work worth checking out is his “Mona Lisa” of 1978, which is a tongue in cheek reproduction of Da Vinci’s Louvre masterpiece. It presents the “Jocante” as a round, larger lady with a typically-Botero oversized head — perhaps designed to poke fun at the pretensions of the art world.
Upstairs is the collection of sculptures and 20th century art.
Botero comes across as a artist with a good sense of humor, whose works are engaging and accessible to non-art lovers. And as the Botero Museum shows, he also had a seriously good collection.
The Botero Museum is situated in the Bank of the Republic’s museum complex on Calle 11 in Bogota’s historical Candelaria. It is open Monday-Saturday 9AM until 7PM, closed on Tuesdays; Sundays and holidays 10AM – 5PM. Next door is the Bank of the Republic’s temporary exhibition space and the also interesting Casa de Moneda, Money Museum. Entrance is free.