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form that existed in this space. It was intentional illusion.
That’s why I exaggerate forms. Michelangelo, Masaccio, Gi-
otto – all of them exaggerated.
“My ideas were greatly defined by the Florentine style. I
identified greatly with the quattrocento,” he says, referring
to the period in Italian history when artists were beginning
to shed the Byzantine and Gothic styles.
Botero’s fat people reflect another quintessential belief
of the artist – one should follow one’s instincts no matter
the public mood. Botero’s big break came in the 1960s in
New York, when he exhibited at the Museum of Modern
Art. The exhibition was pivotal for his career, and occurred
at a time when the Big Apple was far from enamoured of
figurative art. “When I came to New York, everyone was do-
ing Abstract Expressionism. I was doing what I do. I believe
very strongly in figuration and things that, even today, other
artists don’t believe in. I was faithful to myself. I don’t like to
follow fashion.”
More recently, Botero has displayed his convictions by
exhibiting paintings that make strong political statements.
In 2004, he showed a series depicting the violence in Co-
lombia from the drug cartels. A year later, he created an
international stir with his 85 Abu Ghraib paintings, which
depicted the US military’s abuses of Iraqi prisoners.
“I was shocked by different issues. That’s why I did these
series of paintings,” he says.
Does he feel that the artist has a moral role in public life?
“Yes and no. Some things happen and you can do nothing
about them. When it comes to something like Abu Ghraib
and torture – you have to say something about it. So yes,
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Botero finds much of contem-
porary art – conceptual art, installations and so on – “super-
ficial”, both in meaning and execution.
Apart from the raw, lacerating paintings of Botero’s
Abu Ghraib period, his works have tended to depict happy,
domestic scenes – people dancing, eating, laughing, often
amid simple, rustic surroundings. This is why many people
regard Botero – and Botero regards himself – as the most
Colombian of painters: he has never forgotten his roots,
his birth and (mostly fatherless) childhood in the humble
mountainous regions of Medellin, Antioquia.
“The subject matter of my work has been Colombia and
my hometown of Medellin. I have been painting Colombia
all my life, and the other painters in Colombia are mainly
abstract painters. This is why I am called the most Colom-
bian of Colombian painters.”
Do his merry, convivial scenes reflect his own preoccu-
pations with family and friends?
“In Latin American, the family is very important,” says
Botero, who has married three times and has three children
(his son Pedro from his second marriage died in a car ac-
cident). “Not like in France or in the United States, where
there is not the same kind of connection between parents
and children. That’s why I paint such scenes. It’s also a very
interesting composition to have five or six people in a paint-
ing. You will have to really know how to place each person.
It takes real knowledge of composition.”
While Botero has something of a jet-setting lifestyle
now, dividing his time between the cities of New York and
Paris, as well as Monaco, Italy and Greece, he spends the
Year. We don’t pay attention to that. We do the same thing
that we would do every day, lead a normal life.
“Before, Christmas was about enjoying yourself and
then going to bed at midnight – very simple. But now it’s a
big pressure of going to parties. You have the whole year to
be happy. I don’t see why you should be happy just on one
or two days.”
Truly, Botero seems to have seen the sunnier side of
things his whole life, even – or perhaps particularly – in his
younger days, when he was something of a vagabond. The
artist was once quoted as saying: “Life is an extraordinary
adventure when you are poor.”
“What I was trying to say, was that unexpected things
happen to you when you don’t have a credit card. When
you have a credit card, nothing happens to you, you are
totally protected. When I was a young man in Europe, so
many times I had to live in the outdoors. I was driving
around with friends, we would sleep in parks. We didn’t
have any money.
“Once I got my credit card, there was no more adven-
ture, it’s all about living in hotels and so on. The end of ad-
venture could be when you first get a credit card.”
Having been to Singapore several times, does he feel
that we are, well, too protected by our credit cards?
“No, no. Singapore is such a civilised, quiet, relaxed
place to live. It’s like Switzerland. Adventure in life is some-
thing you accept when it is obligatory, but everybody tries
to get to some kind of comfort. The natural desire of man is
to have peace. In Singapore you feel completely protected,
completely secure. I hope you don’t have the kind of ‘ad-

+
T’S hard to call the people in Fernando Botero’s paintings anything but
fat. In a nod to political correctness, you may prefer the term “over-
weight”, “big-boned” or “nutritionally-challenged”. Those conscious of
volume. There are many elements – colour, composition, drawing. Another is
volume. Volume is art.”
The use of volume in painting burst into full flower with the Italian Ren-
there is some kind of moral obligation at some point.”
Given his own preoccupation with volume, and his be-
lief that an artist has to find his personal style, what does he
feel about an artist like Alberto Giacometti, who is equally
obsessed with form, albeit on the other end of the scale, all
whole month of January in Colombia every year.
Christmas, he feels, is not a time for especial socialis-
ing. “I’m not so impressed by parties at Christmas and New
venture’ some other countries have. I think it’s very nice to
live peacefully.”
Botero, the little Colombian country boy who made
good, fighter against injustice, painter of the plump and se-
rene, says he is “normally happy all the time”.

art history, and Botero’s own place in it, may want to call them “Ruben-
esque”. Botero’s women waddle, his men wobble. His animals, it is safe
to say, are not creatures of famine. Botero’s sculpture at Singapore’s Boat Quay,
of a huge bird, is rounded fit to burst.
Why, you ask Botero when you have the friendly artist on the phone on a line
from Paris, are his figures so fat?
“It’s my conviction,” says the famous Colombian-born painter, in heavily
Spanish-accented English. “My conviction is that volume is important, and
that it had been forgotten in the 20th century. Everyone was going back to
flat painting. I did what I believed should be art, and I think one element is
aissance, and Botero, now 78, sees himself as something of a custodian of this
tradition. When he was 20, he sailed from Buenaventura to Europe, where in
Madrid he absorbed the works of masters such as Velasquez and Tit-
ian at the Prado Museum. Then he went to Florence, cradle of the
Renaissance. His now-signature style, with which he had already
begun experimenting, came into fruition.
“The Italians from Florence were able to create this idea of vol-
ume on a flat surface. Now, we think that this is natural and nor-
mal. But before Giotto, paintings were flat and he invented a way
in which you see there was a space, and that there was volume and
?7>C>) 1;>><14A6
spindly and emaciated? “A lot of artists are very moody, you know. That’s be-
“I admire Giacometti because he’s consistent with his cause they have not taken the time to find themselves. They
ideas. He’s coherent. You see his position. He has a style, a don’t know what to look out for, they don’t know what to do.
conviction. Style is born out of conviction. Every great I don’t have that problem; I always have something to do.
artist has to have a style that is unique to him.” There’s no reason for me to be angry or anguished.
As for the ever-changing styles of Pablo Picasso, “My biggest success is that I found myself. My life is a
of whom Botero is a professed admirer, the Colom- reflection about the quality of art, and this reflection be-
bian artist feels that the Spanish-born master was came my personal style. People who see my paintings, they
unique in that each style reflects different aspects of the say ‘That’s Botero’. Very few artists can have the pleasure of
artist’s worldview. this, something so clear and correct.” U

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