'A way of celebrating presence': What Botero's rotund remakes of classical masterpieces tell us about art history

Colombian artist Fernando Botero's joyful paintings reimagine the most iconic and famous works of historic European art. What does his singular vision reveal about the history of art – and Latin America's place in it?

In a painting by the late Colombian artist Fernando Botero, a woman wearing a green dress stares directly at the viewer. In the background is a natural landscape, and a sheer veil covers her dark, curly hair. Paired with her barely visible eyebrows, the portrait is clearly referencing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Yet it bears all the hallmarks that make it unmistakably Botero: the figure has a round body, large head and small facial features.

Mona Lisa (1978) is one of several works by the painter and sculptor that reimagines some of the world's most famous artworks and motifs in his signature style, known as "Boterismo". Botero's voluptuous figures and objects have made him one of the most instantly identifiable artists in Latin America. "Some artists have a very personal language, and one of them is Botero – you will always recognise a piece by him," says Belén Herrera Ottino, director of Opera Gallery Madrid. The gallery's London branch is currently presenting Fernando Botero: in Praise of an Amplified World until the end of November.

Botero's singular style has brought him international recognition. His painting Mona Lisa, Age Twelve (1959) was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1961, his bronze sculptures have been displayed in high-profile public spaces including Park Avenue in New York and the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and his painting The Musicians (1979) fetched a $5.1m (£3.9m) auction price at Christie's New York in November 2023, two months after his death. 

But what is the meaning behind Botero's distinctive style – and what can it tell us about the art history of Europe and Latin America? 

For Botero, exaggerating objects and figures was "a way of celebrating the presence of things," Herrera Ottino says, adding that it was also a "celebration of life, and of the sensuality of nature". During his life, he often explained that his artworks' main purpose was to uplift the spirits of those who viewed it, which he believed form and colour in particular could do. "It was clear to him that throughout history, the purpose of art was to create pleasure," adds the artist's son, and former Colombian Minister of Defence, Fernando Botero Zea.

The origins of Boterismo can be traced to 1956, when Botero was living in Mexico City. He accidentally painted a too-small sound hole on a mandolin in Still Life with Mandolin (1957) and "felt that the instrument exploded in volume and form," Botero Zea tells the BBC. "That was the day that the style of Botero was born." The artist went on to create all his artworks as part of the same singular world, where everything takes up space. "There are very few artists who have created an entire universe that is related to one unique style." 

Many paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Botero, alongside pieces from his personal collection (including works by Picasso, Monet and Dalí) can also be found at the Botero Museum in Bogotá, Colombia. When the artist donated these works to the Central Bank of Colombia (which operates the museum) in 2000, "he was relating his own work with the European tradition," Nicolás Gómez Echeverri, director of the arts at the bank, tells the BBC. "He's saying to the visitors, 'my name is on the same level as these other ones.'"

What the Botero Museum collection also shows is that Botero was obsessed with European Old Masters. "My father was fascinated by great artists," says Botero Zea. "He believed very deeply that the highest moment in the history of art was the [Italian] Renaissance, and that after this period there was a decline, with brilliant exceptions like Picasso and the Impressionist painters." 

The artist particularly disliked abstraction, noting that the popularity of his own work was as a result of being far removed from an approach "where everything is obscure" and the viewer "feels he needs a professor to tell him whether it's good or not," Botero told the Los Angeles Times in 2012. "I believe a painting has to talk directly to the viewer."

Botero Zea says that his father particularly admired Italian art after moving to Madrid in 1952 at 20. At the time, Botero studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and worked as a copyist at the Prado Museum. Then Botero saw a book on the 15th-Century Italian painter Piero della Francesca in a shop window and immediately "made the decision to move to Florence," Botero Zea says.

According to Botero Zea, two artworks particularly defined the trajectory of Botero's career. The first is Piero della Francesca's Meeting between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon (1452-1466), a large fresco depicting a biblical scene where the ruler King Solomon meets the Queen of Sheba. This piece harks back to Botero's upbringing in Medellín, Colombia, where he had little access to art museums, and consumed art through the religious paintings and sculptures inside Catholic churches.

Della Francesca's The Duke and Duchess of Urbino (c 1473–1475), a double portrait inspired by ancient Roman coins and medals, inspired Botero's diptych Federico da Montefeltro, Battista Sforza (1998). In the original version, the duke looks left, concealing the side of his face disfigured in a jousting tournament. While Botero does not reimagine the duke's face with these scars, he switches the sides the couple are facing around. Both are also markedly more plump, taking up more of the canvas. 

Botero's approach to form means that many people perceive his work as simply making people "fat". In Menina, after Velázquez he hones in on the central figure in Diego Velázquez's masterpiece Las Meninas (1656), five-year-old Margaret Theresa of Spain. In Botero's Menina, her face is chubbier, and her shape fuller. In Fornarina, after Raphael (2009), he does the same, transforming Raphael's La Fornarina (Portrait of a Young Woman) (1518-19), a depiction of a mostly nude woman wearing a thin veil to cover her lower abdomen, into a large smiling figure.

Yet, Botero himself explicitly rejected the term "fat", telling the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in 2014: "I don't paint fat women… No one believes me, but it's true. If I paint a woman, a man, a dog or a horse, I do it with volume [in mind]." 

Another influence was The Battle of San Romano – a set of three paintings by the Florentine artist Paolo Uccello illustrating a clash between Florentine and Sienese forces in 1432. Botero Zea points out a rotund white horse in a vibrant blue harness at the centre of one of the pieces. The animal stands out among a sea of men in dark armour, which Botero Zea says is like "a Botero".

Similar horses can be found across Botero's oeuvre, including in El Arrastre (The Drag) (1984), a scene where three horses pull the body of a dead bull out of a traditional bullfighting ring. 

But a Colombian artist being so enamoured by European artists invites questions about visibility – and whose art is deemed significant. Growing up, Botero Zea recalls his father taking him to many of the biggest art institutions in the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, the National Gallery in London and the Uffizi in Florence. He says Botero was often drawn to the most notable pieces by the world's most well-known artists. 

Yet, Gómez Echeverri says that Botero's work is not simply about praising Western art – in fact, his art explores Colombia's relationship to it. He explains that the Mona Lisa, for example, can be found printed across the country. "There's a restaurant nearby called Mona Lisa, and it's a pizza restaurant," he says. A bar in a popular part of the city also has Dalí depicted across its walls. "I believe these kinds of works by Botero, such as his Mona Lisa, are reaffirming how those images come from another context across the ocean and become part of our Latin American visual culture."

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Knowing Botero was influenced by pre-Colombian art, which often featured large, rounded forms, also recontextualises his practice. "He always felt very Colombian and always strove to represent this country well on the international stage," Botero Zea says.

For Gómez Echeverri, Botero was breaking down the boundary between high art and low art. "He's saying that it doesn't exist – they can be a part of the same references," he says, adding that while some might understand "high art to be European, the classicists and white," Botero is turning that idea on its head.

Fernando Botero: in Praise of an Amplified World is at Opera Gallery, London, until 22 November.

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