Fernando Botero: Drawings and Watercolors - Hardcover

Edward J. Sullivan

9780847816651: Fernando Botero: Drawings and Watercolors

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0847816656 ISBN 13: 9780847816651

Publisher: Rizzoli, 1993

The drawings and watercolors handsomely illustrated in this volume provide a comprehensive overview of Fernando Botero's work in this media, which has seldom been reproduced. An introductory essay by Prof. Edward J. Sullivan of New York University, and biographical notes complete the catalogue and provide a framework for these superb but less well-known works by Botero.
With consummate technical ability, this important twentieth century artist has revived the use of ancient materials: sanguine, charcoal, sepia pencil, wash and ink. Most of his drawings are executed on paper, sometimes on canvas, with great attention paid to the quality of the support. Botero uses a variety of drawing techniques. Some pieces are preparatory drawings for entire compositions - usually quick sketches of a drawing or sculpture - but the majority are independent works of art that rarely, if ever, repeat a composition the artist has executed in oils. Botero draws with affection. Each stroke of the pen or brush is applied with the knowledge that it will create another small but important part of the rich world populated by sensuous figures that has evolved throughout the years in the imagination of the artist.
These drawings compel us to confront Botero's art and personality even more directly than in his paintings. In examining them with care, we are privileged to receive a glimpse into the creative mind and fertile imagination of this master. Looking at his drawings we can almost follow the genesis of the artist's ideas. It is as if we were seated at his side in intimate dialogue with him, watching his hand create the simulacra of his inner imagination.

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From Library Journal:

Botero's drawings and watercolors, some of which presumably were studies for paintings, are interesting in themselves as demonstrations of the Colombian artist's interests and techniques. Unfortunately, the introduction Sullivan (fine arts, New York Univ.) provides to these works is too short to be of much use. He neither establishes Botero's connection to the great masters nor provides a discussion of methodology. In addition, Sullivan, who is also the author of Botero Sculpture (Abbeville, 1986), should have discussed the reasons behind the artist's decision to caricature his subjects and evaluated the message conveyed by their bloated bodies. Nevertheless, this volume brings before the public a wider selection of Botero's work and at times gives us a better understanding of his concerns. The informative short biography at the end will be of interest to the educated lay readers for whom this book is designed.
- Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, Ct.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Celebrating human life in all its physicality, Colombian artist Fernando Botero's drawings and watercolors feature the same characters as his oil paintings. Corpulent nudes, lovers, evil dictators, pompous lawyers and generals, buxom society ladies, macho gents, village musicians, self-important clerics, intent card players and dour yet benign nuns are all protagonists in the comically ironic drama the artist finds all around him. His figures, inflated as if by helium, mirror his fellow Colombians' passivity but also their self-possession, nobility and the strong transformative impulses simmering beneath their placid exteriors. His pulsating still lifes speak of abundance and bounty. In this lavishly illustrated monograph, Sullivan ( Botero: Sculpture ) traces the constant dialogue in Botero's work with European Old Masters and with Latin American colonial baroque art.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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