FERNANDO BOTERO

(B. 1932)

La Primera Dama
1967

Footnotes

Provenance
Collection of Manuel Checa Solari, Peru (acquired from the artist in 1967)
Galeria Sur, Uruguay
Private Collection, Turkey (acquired from the above in 2012)
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2018


Exuding a powerful authority and striking in both composition and scale, La Primera Dama (1967) is an outstanding and iconic work by one of the most important Latin American artists of our day. Incorporating Fernando Botero's unique voluptuous signature style, the present work is a magnificently robust and distinctively Colombian painting, rendering it a highly personal and superlative portrait in the artist's unmistakable hand. Originating from a prominent passage of Botero's early practice, the present work engages deeply with his art historical academic training in Western Classicism and his enduring fascination for exaggerated elements. Botero's paintings are as technically astute, as they are iconic, and his legacy as one of the principal artists of the last three decades is without question.

The present work is a sumptuous portrait of the First Lady of Colombia and is an early and fascinating example of Botero's depictions of the upper echelons of South American society. Executed in 1967, La Primera Dama combines quintessential qualities of Fernando Botero's portraits such as the theme of the bourgeoisie and the ruling elite with the exploration of Colombian identity.

Painted during a seminal period of European travel for Botero, the influence of Italy's Renaissance frescoes, Spain's Golden Age masters, and France's turn-of-the-century School of Paris, can be plainly seen in the present work. Having studied under Roberto Longhi, a renowned authority on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, Botero obtained a remarkable art historical knowledge of Western Classicism. Deeply influenced by these masterworks, Botero embarked on a quest to critically re-interpret iconic paintings: to pay homage to the great artists of the past; and in doing so, to find a gateway to true originality.

Viewed through the lens of art history, the present work draws certain inspirations, such as motifs, composition, and background settings, from archetypal masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance such as Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1503). The smooth, sfumato-like blending around the sitter's features elicit awe from the viewer and draw the audience into her dark brown eyes and delicately smiling lips. Characteristic of many of Botero's portraits of women, La Primera Dama is a dominant matriarch; we the audience are merely basking in her voluptuous glory. Holding her small dog in her arms, on first look her body language echoes that of a Renaissance Virgin Mary, nurturing and protecting the people of Colombia.

Motifs drawn from the Old Masters, are interspersed with Colombian mid-century fashions and South American landscapes, unsurprising from an artist who described himself and 'the most Colombian of Colombian artists' (the artist in: Werner Spies, 'A Conversation with Fernando Botero' in Botero: Paintings and Drawings, Munich 2007, p. 154). The First Lady clutches a faithful lap dog to her bosom and wears a brown mink fur coat. She is adorned with a resplendent string of pearls and a pair of Colombian emerald earrings, the grandiosity of her attire adding yet more volume to her figure. Despite the patriotic theme of the present work, the thin flashes of yellow, red and blue of the flag seem microscopic, and are eclipsed by the eponymous figurehead and protagonist of this scene. Botero sees beauty in all the vagaries of the human body and humour, as well as in its fleshy flamboyance and self-importance.

The small grey dog is emblematic of styles of regal and aristocratic portraits from the canon of Western art history, particularly in its use of canine pets as symbols of a sitter's loyalty, courage, and guardianship. The present work and other portraits by Botero echo court paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya and Bronzino, and reference the plump, small, Pre-Columbian dog-shaped ceramic vessels from Colima, Mexico. The swift flash of the lap dog's tongue give this canine companion a more playful, accessible quality than the regal magnificence of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels or the sculpted athleticism of Italian Greyhounds.

Botero's curvilinear and corpulent treatment of his subjects is applied to every sitter - from the wealthy to the ordinary, from humans to dogs. Born out of a lifelong fascination with the exploration of volume, all subjects and still life that encounter Botero's hand are transformed into objects of exaggerated mass and monumentality. On the surface, La Primera Dama extolls the virtues of the wealthy but compositional and background elements lend the entire canvas satirical undertones; a volcano erupts to the far left of the viewer, the trees overlap ominously as if to form a cage-like structure and the flag which should serve to highlight the First Lady's allegiance to her motherland - is humorously small in size. Despite the caricature-like figures and the irony that is embedded within his works, in magnifying his subjects' forms, Botero venerates them.

The present work shares clear characteristics with other portraits executed by the artist in the same year, notably The Presidential Family (1967) which is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting features similarly serrated mountain ranges and a twilight sky behind the host of patriotic characters rendered in a subtly sarcastic manner. Elsewhere Botero's work can be found in the collections of prestigious museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Museum Moderne Kunst in Vienna, among many others.