拍品 196
  • 196

FERNANDO BOTERO | El bosque

估價
400,000 - 600,000 USD
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招標截止

描述

  • 費南度·波特羅
  • El bosque
  • signed and dated 67; signed, titled and dated 67 on the reverse
  • oil on canvas
  • 64 by 72 in. 162.6 by 182.9 cm.

來源

Walter Engel Gallery, Toronto
Acquired from the above by the present owner 

Condition

This work is in very good condition overall. The canvas is unlined and well-stretched. The colors are vibrant, and the media layer is stable overall. A few minor pinpoint spots of media loss are scattered throughout. Artist pinholes are scattered along the extreme upper edge and each of the upper corners of the canvas. At the extreme lower left edge, a very faint fourteen-inch horizontal scuff is present. Under ultraviolet light examination, areas of fluorescence occur thorughotu which are inherent to the pigments selected by the artist.
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.

拍品資料及來源

By the mid-1960s, Fernando Botero’s unique aesthetic vision had already fully materialized. Forging an oeuvre informed by art historical influences ranging from the great Italian and Spanish Old Masters to the French Impressionists, Botero had achieved a uniquely personal solution to contemporary figurative painting: one that embodied both whimsy and socially-critique. It thus became apparent early-on that Botero would resist complying with the prevailing aesthetic currents of American Abstract Expressionism and European Post-War avant-garde—both arguably more acceptable paths for an ambitious young artist seeking recognition.

Botero’s narrative scenes of everyday, comical hyperbole are populated by his immediately identifiable voluminous characters. Moreover, his paintings maintain a pivotal element of didacticism, as he said: “[they] function within free, imaginative, innovative parameters […] it is not a matter of creating the kind of beauty that fits into the classical canons. The purpose, rather, is to reach a stage at which it has become possible to surprise and be surprised.” (Carlos Fuentes, Botero: Women, New York, 2003, n.p.) His singular artistic production garnered him international critical acclaim by this time as well. In 1958 Botero received the Guggenheim International award, he participated in both the XXIX Venice Biennale and in the V Bienal of São Paulo in 1958 and 1959 respectively, and in 1961 the Museum of Modern Art, New York acquired his famed painting Mona Lisa, Age 12—the only figurative painting acquired by MoMA that year.

Over the course of the first-half of the 1960s, Botero continually moved between Europe, Colombia and New York. In 1967, he became profoundly “interested in Éduoard Manet and paint[ed] a number of pictures after the latter’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Lunch on the Grass).” (Werner Spies, Botero, Fernando Botero, Paintings and Drawings, Munich, 1992, p. 30) Painted during this important year, El Bosque presents us with an enchanted, bucolic scene. Referential of Manet’s elegant depictions of leisurely afternoon gatherings in the Tuileries Gardens of Paris, Fernando Botero evokes a scene of playful recreation: outfitted in a ballerina costume, a young girl dances along with her kite in a small, cleared playground resembling a circular theatre. Botero’s uses of rhythmic tones of dark greens and browns in the surrounding trees creates the sensation of movement and light around the gracefully, leaping girl. Acquired from the Walter Engel Gallery in Toronto, El Bosque has since  held in the same private collection for fourty-five years. Austrian-born Walter Engel played a critical role in promoting Latin American Art throughout Canada. Fleeing to Colombia in 1938 after the Anschluss (the Nazi annexation of Austria), Engel became a central figure in the cultural milieu of his new country of residence. As a member of the International Association of Art Critics (IAAC), he contributed regularly to the major national newspapers and artistic journals of the time. While living in Bogotá, he became friends with Fernando Botero. In 1965, he moved to Toronto, Canada where he founded his famed Walter Engel Gallery from where he would work endlessly, until his retirements at the age of 82, to promote art from Latin America.