FERNANDO BOTERO

(1932-2023)

The Bed

Footnotes

Provenance
Marlborough Gallery Inc., New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner through Ron Wilson Interiors, Los Angeles.

Literature
G. Lascault, Botero - La pintura, Madrid and Paris, 1992 (illustrated p. 277).
E.J. Sullivan and J.M. Tasset, Fernando Botero: Monograph & Catalogue Raisonné Paintings 1975-1990, Lausanne, 2000, no. 1982/3 (illustrated p. 314, incorrect dimensions).



An exemplary foray into the classical nude by one of the world's most beloved artists, The Bed exemplifies Fernando Botero's dexterous ability to reinterpret art historical genres, creating richly narrative and contemporary mises en scene. Botero regularly drew on the old masters to add layers of meaning to the subjects and characters inspired by his upbringing in Latin America. Executed in his signature style and laced with symbols and cues, in The Bed Botero emphasizes sensual form to transmute the classical Venus into a courtesan, a subject common in his body of work since the early 1970s. In so doing, like Manet's Olympia, Botero elevates and upends the traditional meanings ascribed to everyday and unnamed people who were typically not celebrated or portrayed.

Implied in the present lot, the intimacy of the moment is detailed in a litany of finely executed details: red-painted fingernails, sage-green eye shadow under thin brows, a delicate wristwatch keeps her mindful of time, and a small white nightgown draped over her thigh. But it is the combination of the mirror, bed and her body language which most suggestively tells her story — in the mirror (often present in Botero's compositions of bordellos) one can glimpse an open red door. She stares coyly, with her body turned coquettishly away on the bed. Botero here masterfully nods to Velázquez as he implicates the viewer as voyeur.

Botero's history of including courtesans in his body of work stems from the prevalence of sex workers in public spaces in mid-century Medellín, said to have expanded to serve the increasing city population as it underwent industrialization. In the year 2000, at an event celebrating the artist's donation of several works to the Museo de Antioquia in the city, Botero recounted his own personal connection to them, saying "when I was about thirteen years old, I would go to several of the whorehouses in the red district in Medellín. I would talk to the prostitutes—who all seemed very old to me then (they were probably in their twenties). I was fascinated by them and really liked them. Many years later, when I had a large show of my work in Colombia, I received a letter from one of them with whom I had been particularly friendly. It was a love letter! I was thrilled and touched and it made me remember every moment of those days."

Much like the female nudes in art historical precedents such as Tintoretto's Susanna and the Elders and Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus') Botero's protagonist in The Bed acts as a symbol for desire itself. While Tintoretto's depicts the biblical story whereby respected elders lusted after a married woman and Velázquez's depicts the mythological figures of love Cupid and Venus, Botero's 20th century adaptation takes the personification of desire into the form of a courtesan. In all three works, a mirror is crucially present, reminding the viewer of their voyeurism. Critically, in The Bed, Botero articulates this complexity and nuance with a sense of visual delight that celebrates the figure in all her beauty and grace, elevating her to the same stature of mythological and biblical symbols of beauty and desire. It is this articulation of beauty and sensuality that remained, in the artist's own words, a "fundamental goal of my work" ("Fernando Botero: 'Art Was Created to Give Pleasure'," New York Times, December 8, 2023, Online). By creating a sense of grandeur, Botero gives meaning to everyday moments and people, celebrating the figure as the main character in their world.

Born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1932, Botero endured a challenging childhood. After the death of his father at age four, Botero's mother raised him and his siblings, and the artist turned to his community to seek inspiration. Botero became a firm believer that "artists achieved universality by representing their own worlds, and by tapping into their roots, they tapped into the deepest fibers of commonality that we all share" (ibid.). Botero celebrates that commonality in his work while imbuing each figure with importance beyond the obvious.

Fernando Botero has been the subject of several solo exhibitions and is included in the permanent collections of countless institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Ho-am Museum, Seoul; Museo d'Arte Moderna del Vaticano, Rome, Italy Museum Moderne Kunst, Vienna; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.