Lot Essay
Bullfights have fascinated Botero since his early childhood, when his uncle, a dedicated aficionado, would take him to see corridas in the Plaza de la Macarena in Medellín. When Botero was twelve years old, his uncle took him to a bullfighting school. Although Botero participated in the training, he did not become a Torero, preferring to draw the bulls rather than learning to kill them. His first drawings therefore, represented his impressions on bullfights.
Botero had his first corrida paintings show in 1985, at Marlborough Gallery in New York initiating a new chapter in his artistic oeuvre. Fascinated by the inexhaustible possibilities of artistic expression in the subject, Botero considers his corrida paintings to be a synthesis of his work up to that time.
Having little to do with the bloody spectacle which unfolds in the bullfighting ring, Botero's paintings respond to the dictates of his imagination in an interplay of form and fantasy. Everything in his pictures appears bewitched; his world is monumental, sensual and filled with brilliant colors.
Derechazo depicts the fight between an enormous brown bull and a corpulent Torero, with a haughty look on his face and the red muleta in his hand, concealing the point of steel. In Botero's view, the deformation is more real than reality, and his corridas only take place in his paintings.
Botero had his first corrida paintings show in 1985, at Marlborough Gallery in New York initiating a new chapter in his artistic oeuvre. Fascinated by the inexhaustible possibilities of artistic expression in the subject, Botero considers his corrida paintings to be a synthesis of his work up to that time.
Having little to do with the bloody spectacle which unfolds in the bullfighting ring, Botero's paintings respond to the dictates of his imagination in an interplay of form and fantasy. Everything in his pictures appears bewitched; his world is monumental, sensual and filled with brilliant colors.
Derechazo depicts the fight between an enormous brown bull and a corpulent Torero, with a haughty look on his face and the red muleta in his hand, concealing the point of steel. In Botero's view, the deformation is more real than reality, and his corridas only take place in his paintings.