(born in Medellin, Columbia 1932; lives and works in Paris and New York)
Femme Nue Allongée (Reclining Nude), signed and numbered 3/6, bronze, executed in 2000, 50.8 x 117 x 56 cm

This work is number 3 from an edition of 6 plus 2 artist’s proofs.
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Provenance:
Galleria Contini, Venice
Private Collection, Italy (acquired from the above in 2006)

Executed by Fernando Botero in the year 2000, Femme Nue allongée is one of the many women sculpted by this prolific artist whose unique style has been dubbed Boterismo. Fernando Botero began in painting before going on to a brilliant career as a sculptor.
In Femme Nue Allongeé, Botero once again demonstrates that proportions express aesthetic propositions and compositional requirements, whereas the full-blown opulence of his figures constitutes an opposition to the modish style dictated by Western perceptions of beauty. This woman’s peaceful expression recalls the Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca, while lying prone and naked, she emanates a kind of purity proper to Renaissance beauty.
Born in Columbia in 1932 in the city of Medellin, Botero did not have an easy childhood and after a short experience at a school where he trained to become a matador, he was able to start his artistic career at age 16. In his early twenties he had already moved to Bogota where he hosted his first solo exhibition. From then on, Botero travelled around Europe, spent time in Madrid at the Real Academy de Belles Artes and then went to Paris imbuing lessons from the works of the Old Masters at the Louvre. He also travelled to Italy where he looked at works by Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Giotto and all the Renaissance artists. Studying all these works in addition to those of Spanish Baroque artists like Velàsquez and the Mexican art murals by Diego Rivera, Botero started shaping his own artistic style.
“Botero’s art combines the vibrancy, boldness and folk themes common to Latin American art while paying a respectful homage to sensuousness of form in the work of the Old Masters. In doing so, Botero has developed a style that is both part of an artistic tradition and entirely his own. As Reed Johnson writing for the Los Angeles Times said, ‘his Rubenesque humans, rotund landscapes and voluptuous vases, musical instruments and other inanimate objects are so identifiable as to be practically a trademark.’” (by Helen Armitage 23/11/2016 The Art of Fernando Botero: Colombia’s most Colombian artist).
In his artworks, Botero depicts volume and sensuality of the form. Drawing the viewer’s attention to monu-mentality, he aims to provide the viewers with a sense of tranquillity and joy consistent with his belief that ‘art should be an oasis, a place of refuge from the hardness of life.’
Even if he is mostly known for representing joyful subjects, Botero has made strong political statements in executing works like The Death of Pablo Escobar, a painting portraying the internationally known drug dealer Pablo Escobar gunned down by the police. In 1995, after a failed kidnapping attempt, the Bird, a sculpture he had donated to his native city of Medellin, was destroyed by a terrorist bomb attack in which over 20 people lost their lives. In response to this savage threat, Botero donated to the city another statue titled the Dove of Peace that was placed next to the damaged Bird.
In 2000, addressing drug violence in his country, Botero stated:
‘The Colombian drama is so out of proportion that today you cannot ignore the violence, the thousands of displaced and dead, the processions of coffins. ”(by Helen Armitage 23/11/2016 The Art of Fernando Botero: Colombia’s most Colombian artist).
Throughout the 1990s, Botero donated over three hundred works of art, including his own works and many by 19th and 20th Century European masters, to the museum in Medellin.
His outdoor sculptures can be seen in public spaces around the world. His monumental pieces can be admired not only in his native Medellin, but in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Jerusalem, Pietrasanta (where he works his marbles), New York, Bamberg in Germany and Yerevan in Armenia. His work has been exhibited all over the world, reaching China with a travelling exhibition in 2015. Botero is an artist known all over the the world and as his son Juan Carlos once said about his work ‘one of Botero’s most important convictions is that art should be direct in its meaning: anyone should be able to understand it. This is one of his strongest principles as an artist. People ‘get’ his paintings, drawings and sculptures because his art is straightforward. There’s no need for a complementary explanation by a third party to help decipher, admire, appreciate or simply enjoy the work, as so often happens in contemporary art.’