Fernando Botero (b. 1932)

Marlborough Gallery, New York
Delmar D. Hendricks, New York
Otto Atencio, New York

New York, Marlborough Gallery, Inc., Fernando Botero, February 1972, no. 18, p. 5, illustrated
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Corpus Christi, Art Museum of South Texas, Fernando Botero, December 20, 1979-May 10, 1980, no. 62, p. 105, illustrated

Carter Ratcliff, Botero, New York, 1980, p. 248, no. 219, illustrated

This painting is still stretched on its original stretcher and is well stretched. The paint layer has probably never been cleaned or restored. Between two large tree trunks on the left there is a small paint loss and beneath the torso of the figure there are two or three small white spots which may not be original. However, the remainder of the picture is in lovely condition. This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The representation of pure joie de vivre is undoubtedly one of the most significant underlying motifs in Fernando Botero's oeuvre. Inspired by Manet's Dejeuner sur l' Herbe of 1963, Botero frequently revisited the Sunday picnic scene from 1966 to 1973. We find the poet, a recurring outsider in the artist's catalogue of social characters, on a solitary picnic.  The poet, a man dressed in a dark suit and tie, a flower in his lapel, a handkerchief in the pocket and a hat atop his head, reclines and occupies the forefront of the composition in this and in the many other variant paintings representing this archetype. Some of Botero's poets exhibit attributes associated with a lettered man: books, paper and pencil. Like many of the picnic figures, this early version of the poet—formerly in collection of Otto Atencio—presents the reclining figure of a man in a moment of contemplation against a backdrop of lush green trees and lawn of a city park. In search of inspiration, he has just smoked a cigarette and is enjoying a drink straight from the bottle. A volcano fumes behind the trees and the hills of grass, an allusion to the ideas fomenting in the mind of this gentleman and also to the cigarette which has just been extinguished.   As perhaps the only sign of disruptive natural activity, the volcano breaks the tranquility of the scene and opens the otherwise dense composition far into the horizon.  In this dreamy vignette, Botero has presented us not with a resting poet but with an invitation to consider the portrait of a common man turned fugitively into a poet by the grace of the moment that he is enjoying so placidly.