Fernando Botero. Beyond the Forms

This is the premiere retrospective devoted to the Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero in a Belgian museum. It will cover the artist's entire career, from his youthful research, which is little known to the general public, to the iconic works of his maturity, including recent paintings presented for the first time. The exhibition, Fernando Botero, brings together important works borrowed from prestigious museums, of which historic paintings rarely shown to European audiences, and paintings, drawings and sculptures from international private collections.
The tour takes visitors into Botero's abundant universe, inspired as much by pre-Columbian art and popular iconography as by Mexican muralists and Italian Renaissance art. At the centre of the exhibition, about fifteen works from the little-known collections of the BAM will illustrate the major inspirations of the Colombian artist around different themes : still-lifes, nudes, genre scenes, etc. Fernando Botero, au-delà des formes is part of a new generation of exhibitions that offer a new perspective on art and reveal how artists are reappropriating the myths, legends and canonical themes that shape the history of Western art.
Renowned for his round and voluptuous figures, reflecting the artist's taste for satire and caricature, Botero's work (1932-) is the result of demanding and determined research, in which the artist has been engaged for more than 70 years. The artist is known for the diversity of the sources of his work, inspired as much by Colombian folk imagery or Mexican muralists as by the art of the Renaissance and the emblematic works of Diego Velázquez, Pablo Picasso or Francisco de Goya.