CHRISTIE'S
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| Fernando Botero (b. 1932), Arzobispo de un año de edad, 1968. Oil on canvas. 52 1/2 x 64 in. (133.4 x 162.6 cm.) Estimate: $300,000-500,000. This work is offered in the Latin American Art sale on 25-26 May at Christie’s New York |
“By being inflated,” Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa has written, “
[Fernando] Botero’s characters and objects become light and serene, achieving a primordial and innocuous state.” Such words aptly describe the artist’s Arzobispo de un año de edad, whose titular protagonist conforms to Botero’s characteristic style of corpulent figures with fleshy curves. With his round, ruddy cheeks and pudgy fingers extended in blessing, the weight of the archbishop creates soft puckers in the pink pillow and luminescent sheets upon which he rests. Indeed, although wearing the official insignia of his profession, the young clergyman is little more than an innocent toddler, whose flowing white vestments doubly evoke a sumptuous baptismal gown. [
Bid]
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