Lot Details
Lot 712
Fernando Botero Colombian, b. 1932 PROMENADE
Colombian, b. 1932
PROMENADE
Signed and dated Botero 79 (lr)
Oil on canvas
38 1/4 x 31 1/8 inches (97.2 x 79 cm.)
Provenance:
Marlborough Gallery, New York
Literature:
Carter Ratcliff, Botero, New York, 1980, fig. 89, illus. in color, as Promenade
Pierre Restany, Botero, Geneva, 1983, illus. in color
Giorgio Soavi, Botero, Milan, 1988, no.174, illus. in color
Giorgio Soavi, Fernando Botero Oeuvres 1959-1989, Paris, 1990, no.77, illus. in color, as Promenade
Gilbert Lascauet, Botero-La Pintura, Madrid and Paris, 1992, p.209, illus. in color, as Paseo
Edward J. Sullivan, Jean-Marie Tasset, Fernando Botero, Monograph & Catalogue Raisonne Paintings 1975-1990, 2000, p.293, no.1979/31, illus. as The Walk
This gently mocking image of a Cardinal dressed in formal vestments, taking a walk in the woods, is influenced by Botero's study of painters such as Piero della Francesca and Velasquez, and informed by the artist's childhood in Colombia. In an interview with Ana Maria Escallon (Botero, New Works on Paper, 1997), Botero states that "The artist's first twenty years have an enormous visual repercussion on the evolution of his work. It appears that nostalgia for certain moments of his life will come to the fore. One always paints what is best known, and it is rooted in childhood and adolescence. That is the world I paint. I have done nothing else." In addition to the serenity emanating from the compositions of an artist such as Piero della Francesca, Botero was affected by "color married with form to transmute into an ideal abstraction." Formal problems were paramount, as the artist perfected his technique. According to Carter Ratcliff, the three steps of "composition, spatial effects, and color" were conceived independently with a rapid sketch, translated onto a primed canvas, which was developed into a three dimensional pictorial space, before the addition of color. The artist describes his technique as "tuning a piano, bringing all the elements into harmony, evolving always toward the joy of plasticity-something very strange, and the source of pleasure in painting."
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