Botero started out from a small Colombian town to become one of the most successful artists of our times. His art is rooted in the folk art tradition of his homeland, while at the same time conveying the influence of great Western European artists \u2013 from Giotto, Piero della Francesca, and Vel\u00e1zquez to Picasso.
\nThe retrospective exhibition comprised works of all periods of his creation; among them, a group of works depicting the tortures of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison and revealing the artist\u2019s social awareness, which first went on display at the National Gallery.
\nBotero mostly depicts the anonymous and downtrodden everyday people shown in their natural surroundings. Facial and physical features and emblematic elements evoke Latin America, especially the artist\u2019s native Colombia.
\nThe public had an opportunity to admire Fernando Botero\u2019s work in all its diversity at the National Gallery, where 142 of his paintings went on display.
\nWith their exuberant volumes, the Colombian artist\u2019s figures express nostalgia for the lost paradise, where the primordial couple innocently and uninhibitedly enjoyed love and the fruit of the land.
\nBotero\u2019s superlative \u2013 both literally and metaphorically \u2013 humanity is here proposed as a therapeutic antidote for people who live in Western societies of abundance, who suffer from the deprivation syndrome of a never-ending diet.<\/p>\n
Exhibition Curator: Dr. Nelly Missirli, Director of Collections and Museological Planning at the National Gallery of Greece<\/p>\n
Sponsor: National Bank of Greece Private Banking
\nCommunication Sponsor: Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
National Gallery, 22\/05\/2006 – 23\/09\/2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88283,"template":"","class_list":["post-48818","ekthesi","type-ekthesi","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n