$160,000
Estimate: $120,000 - $180,000
18 Works from the Bachman Collection
Auction: June 4, 2018 1:00:00 PM EDT
1981, signed and numbered 5/6 on the left hind leg. Bronze with brown patina.
height: 27 in. (68.6cm)
width: 16 in. (40.6cm)
depth: 25 1/2 in. (64.8cm)
Provenance: Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York.
The Estate of Lee & Gilbert Bachman, Atlanta, Georgia & Boca Raton, Florida (acquired directly from the above in 1986).
EXHIBITED:
"Fernando Botero, Recent Sculpture," Marlborough Gallery, New York, April 30 - May 29, 1982, no. 19 (another cast illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).
NOTE:
This lot is accompanied by a photocopy of the bill of sale from Marlborough Gallery, New York.
Arguably one of Latin America's most famous living artists, Fernando Botero is world-renowned for his oversize, voluminous depictions of figures, still lifes and animals. Of his predilection for depicting his subjects in ample sizes, he said, "an artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a passion intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it" (McDermott, Tea for Two, 2005).
The youngest of three brothers, Botero was born in Medellin, Colombia and attended bullfighting school before turning his attention to art. Thereafter he moved to Bogota, and after winning several prizes for his first paintings, traveled extensively throughout Europe. It was during these travels that Botero was able to visit world famous museums and learn about the artists of the Renaissance whose masterpieces he would reference frequently in his later work. In the 1950s, he moved to Madrid, where he studied art at the Academy of San Fernando, an education which he financed by producing paintings and drawings outside of the Museo del Prado. In 1951, Botero's first solo exhibition was held at the Leo Matiz Gallery in Bogota.
The artist always had an impulse to create sculpture and experimented with it infrequently throughout the 1960s. Yet it wasn't until after 1975 when he converted his Paris studio into a sculptor's atelier and when he could afford to have his work cast at a foundry, that he was able pursue the medium in earnest. Around this same time, Botero began to achieve world-wide fame for his art. His work is represented internationally in major museums, corporate and private collections, as well as in open locations such as public squares and parks. Botero often makes replicas of his best paintings in three-dimensional form, so they can be viewed and enjoyed in the street. Additional subjects of his sculpture include animals, such as horses, birds, cats and, as shown in the present lot, dogs.