(born in Medellín, Colombia in 1932; lives and works in Paris and New York)
Seated Man, 2000, signed and dated Botero 00,
oil on canvas, 39.5 x 31 cm, framed

This work is accompanied by a written confirmation from the artist.
We are grateful to Mr. Fernando Botero for confirming the authenticity of this work.

Provenance:
The artist
Marlborough Gallery, New York
Private Collection – acquired from the above in 2001
Heritage Auctions California, 24 May 2018, lot 77014
acquired from the above by the present owner

“Botero’s painting reflects an understandable nature and is, above all, one thing: painting. It does not justify its colours and forms through any morality or set of principles. Its references are both the visible world and the artistic tradition to which the techniques and themes refer. In a world in which artistic values are in crisis – now or in the future they have all been, or will be, questioned and replaced by others in endless, vertiginous succession – Botero’s work, with its constant reference to the art of the past, with its rational balance, its exquisite style, its positive, unified and optimistic vision, free from tension or fear, with its sensuality and humour, but above all with its artistic hedonism, serves as a passionate affirmation of painting as an activity that finds its justification in the enjoyment that it generates and bestows, and demonstrates the confidence and conviction that hunger for beauty is still a legitimate desire.”

(Mario Vargas Llosa: “A Sumptuos Abundance”, in: Fernando Botero,
exhibition catalogue, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, edited by Evelyn Benesch,
Ingrid Brugger, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012, p. 32f.)

Botero’s emphasis on round, sensual contours and his characteristic handling of voluminous forms also characterise the present Portrait of a Seated Man from the year 2000. Despite the delicate accuracy of the facial features, Botero does not portray an individual, but rather the archetype of the little man in general. Dressed in a simple brown suit, tie and hat, he sits lost in dreams with a cigarette in his hand next to a glass of beer – an everyday scene without drama, imbued with pleasure and equanimity. The magic and power of the small-format painting come from the pictorial brilliance of the high-contrast colour scale. Areas in the four basic colours of red, green, blue and yellow, as well as the brown suit, are laid out in an equally exciting and harmonious balance by Botero. The artist himself describes his colour and form compositions as “figurative post-abstraction” and explains that he takes “almost the same liberties with colour and form as abstract artists. I first see the picture I’m working on as colour. I place colour values in two dimensions on the canvas until it is completely covered – almost like an abstract picture. Only later do I transform the colour elements into three-dimensional forms. I’m concerned with the messages ‘behind’ the colours and lines - comparable to Nicolas Poussin, who described painting as an imitation of lines and colours on a surface; its purpose should be to spread pleasure.”

(Fernando Botero in conversation with Evelyn Benesch, in: Fernando Botero, exhibition catalogue, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, edited by Evelyn Benesch, Ingrid Brugger, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012, p. 47)