Fernando Botero (b. 1932)

Galerie Buchholz, Munich (1970)
The Collection of Herbert Asmodi, Munich
Private Collection, Germany (acquired from the above 1975)
Sale: Koller Auktionen AG, Zurich, Schweizer Kunst, Moderne Kunst, Zeitgenössische Kunst, Moderne Graphik, lot 3329, illustrated in color
Private Collection, Germany

Munich, Galerie Buccholz, Botero, 1970, no. 9, illustrated
Munich, Galerie Stangl, 1975

Carter Radcliff, Fernando Botero, New York, 1980, no. 70, illustrated

This large early work by the artist is in wonderful condition. The canvas is well stretched. The paint layer is clean. The gloss to the paint layer seems to be original. There do not seem to be any retouches. Any slight eccentricities to the paint layer, beneath the earring on the right for instance, are original to the artist and should be left unrestored. (This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.)
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

When one is young, one wants to put everything together. I wanted the color of Matisse, the construction of Picasso the brushwork of Van Gogh. Botero

 

By following Botero footsteps from his native Medellín (Colombia) all the way to New York we will find a curious artist who would do almost anything to catch up with the world. His early art education was almost entirely derived from black and white books he could find in Colombia. After winning a prize in the National Salon in 1952, he embarked to Europe, first stop: Madrid. He enrolled at the Academy and visited the Prado regularly. It is there he fell for Velázquez. From Madrid, he moves to France and we soon find him in Italy studying at the San Marco Academy. One of his biographers, Mariana Hanstein traces his early interest in Renaissance art: "He soon got to know the legendary Bernard Berenson. In his major work on Italian Renaissance painters …/..Berenson provided the guidelines for the young Botero. In it, he found a definition of each artist´s style, an essence of tangible values, plasticity and the monumentality of the perspective outline."[1]  Botero traveled through Italy: So many places and so much great art everywhere: Piero della Francesca in Arezzo, Giotto in Assisi, Titian in Venice and back in Florence: Paolo Uccello. All his life would be influenced by these close encounters. (fig. 1)

When Botero reached New York by 1960, he took an apartment in the Village. He was working then with a series of Girls (Niñas, one of which is lot 157) . In these compositions Botero treated the human figure as a mass of colour compressed against the first plane of the painting, much in the same way of Piero´s monumental portrait of Federico de Montefeltro. The most famous of these Niñas was Mona Lisa, age 12. This painting was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in the early 1960s and was exhibited in parallel to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa which was visiting the Met in New York in 1963. Botero had every reason to believe that he was on the right path.

The artist soon found himself at odds with the spirit and the success of the two main artistic currents dominating lower Manhattan. On one side the abstract expressionists: Rothko painting large canvases with monochromatic planes of color, Pollock dripping painting over the canvas, Kline composing with black strokes resembling oriental calligraphy  and De Kooning deforming his characters beyond recognition. All this was a bit too much for an admirer of Della Francesca. On the other side of the artistic spectrum, by the time Botero was painting his Mrs. Rubens Series , Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg were not exactly looking for inspiration in the museums. To the contrary, they scavenged for photos in the daily paper and comic strips to make Pop, a new kind of figurative art that made the popular low culture look like high culture. For Botero, then and now, high culture always had to be the point of departure. He was set on to clash with New York, eventually leaving the Big Apple in the early 1970s.

 

Picasso studied Manet, Delacroix, Velázquez and Cranach among others. For each of the paintings he studied, The Meninas (fig. 2) as an example, he created numerous drawings, works on canvas and prints. Botero was no less prodigious in his approach to certain works of Bonnard, Cézanne, Manet and Rubens. As perhaps the most achieved draftsman in the history of Latin American art, Botero started with numerous sketches and then some refined drawings: he then continued to elaborate on a single theme. Mrs. Rubens #3 , as this monumental painting is titled, started with the famous portrait of Suzanne Lunden (fig. 3) by Rubens in the National Gallery in London. From 1962 to 1964, Botero painted no less than 8 paintings on the same subject matter. This is the largest work and perhaps the most beautifully executed. In the first Mrs Rubens, painted in 1962 and today can be found in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (fig. 4), Botero has respected the original composition: the lovely Susanne is wearing a low-cut dress looking at the eyes of the viewer, feathered hat, pearl earrings, hands crossed; Susanne has now been inflated in such way that the landscape has disappeared and she occupies the totality of the canvas. She appears nonetheless gracious and amused. In 1963, while he was dedicated to paint his own versions of certain old master works, there is a new version:  in front of a window, Mrs. Rubens (fig. 5) is quietly sitting at the window while Susanne Lunden’s image is collaged to the back on an easel. Then came other versions in 1963 and 64.

 

The monumental and radiant Mrs Rubens #3 is more soberly dressed and stands against a blue backdrop, a reminder of the beautiful open sky in Rubens’ work. Her hat is clearly reminiscent of the original. Suzanne’s gaze is powerful and her smile is enigmatic. The color transitions are masterly achieved. Instead of wearing a ring, she is now holding and pointing to a pearl in her left hand. The voluminous, healthy figure emanates a sense of supreme happiness. Botero has not only digested the lesson from Rubens, he has also made her our contemporary. In a sense, almost 400 years have passed since Rubens painted Susanne Lunden. With this version of Mrs Rubens, he has reached the maturity of a style that probably make of him the most recognizable living artist today.

[1] Mariana Hanstein, Botero, New York, 2003 p. 16