After mounting successful museum-level shows and a eclectic exhibition tracing the country’s history at the new Breuer headquarters, Sotheby’s is staging its first show dedicated to a single artist. On view until September 7, the exhibition highlights the work of the Colombian artist Fernando Botero was conceived in partnership with the Botero family and built around works from their archive. Many of these works have never been shown publicly before, which feels well in line with Sotheby’s “New World” experience strategy, which aims to to turn each of its headquarters around the world into a premier destination for luxury and culture designed to appeal to art collectors, luxury buyers and wider audiences just there to see. The Breuer location, in particular, has already drawn crowds more than twice the size of its former location on York Avenue in the first half of 2026.
The focus of the Botero show is the artist’s relationship with New York, collecting works produced between 1960 and 1973 when he lived in Greenwich Village. “New York meant a lot to Botero. It was here that he arrived during his unwavering quest to refine his artistic language while staying true to his creative convictions,” his family told the Observer, recounting how his journey around the world brought him to the city, launching what became a defining chapter in his life. “It was in New York that he met artists, critics, collectors and museums whose influence would be significant in shaping his career. This exhibition brings that moment back, including works from our collection that have never been seen in public before, reunited in the city in which they were created.”
Born in Medellín, Fernando Botero was ambitious, exhibiting at 16 and having his first solo show at just 19 while working as an illustrator for El Columbiano. A national art award allowed him to travel to Europe, where meetings with the Old Masters, Diego Velázquez and Vincent van Gogh complemented influences ranging from colonial and pre-Hispanic art to Mexican muralism and Colombian landscape. After building a reputation in Latin America and Washington DC, Botero moved to Greenwich Village in the late 1950s. A chance visit to the studio by MoMA curator Dorothy Miller led to the museum’s purchase Mona Lisa, twelve years old— the artist’s first institutional purchase — helping connect him with dealers including Pierre Levai, Claude Bernard and Ernst Beyeler. He continued to produce great works such as Pope Leo X (after Raphael) AND The Presidential Familywhile his sold-out 1972 debut at the Marlborough Gallery confirmed that his figurative style could succeed even in a New York art scene dominated by Ab-Ex.
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“Botero in New York“ |
On view at Sotheby’s are 25 paintings and sculptures that depict this important period in Botero’s practice and highlight how firmly he stood for his artistic vision at a time when almost everyone else was moving in the opposite direction. Going against what he described as the “dictatorship of abstract art”, and largely indifferent to the prevailing aesthetic trends and contemporary ideals of beauty, Botero developed his own distinctive and deeply human visual language of rounded forms, voluptuous female bodies and enlarged ordinary urban characters. While critics sometimes dismiss his oversized figures as unfashionable or too accessible, audiences respond to their warmth, humor, sensuality and unmistakable sense of volume—the qualities that defined “Boterismo.”
Included in the exhibition is Monalisa at the age of thirteena painting closely related to Mona Lisa, twelve years old. The painting offers a gritty reinterpretation of Leonardo’s iconic character in an unmistakably Boterian visual lexicon. Also on view is a much more dynamic fragmented canvas from 1959, The apotheosis of Ramón Hoyoconceived as a tribute to the famous Colombian cyclist Ramón Hoyos Vallejo, a five-time winner of the Vuelta a Colombia, through an epic composition rooted in art history and referencing pre-Columbian art. Other highlights include Picnic (1973), in which Botero’s visual language expands into landscape; inspired by Van Gogh sunflower (1977); and lush Still life with watermelon (1976), which reflects his enduring devotion to the great masters who preceded him.
Botero’s market experienced a tremendous acceleration after the pandemic, a momentum that continued to strengthen after his death in 2023. Artnet reported that its annual auction sales increased from $9.7 million in 2020 to $21.2 million in 2023, then reached $25.1 million by November 2024. The latest auction results further underscore this strength, confirmed Anna Di Stasiglobal head of Sotheby’s Latin American Art. Works such as horse have fetched prices in excess of $4 million at Sotheby’s, while paintings have consistently achieved multi-million dollar results at auction. Even in a more selective market, strong examples regularly exceed their estimates, confirming the steady demand for museum-quality works.
Today, the market for Botero’s work is mature, but increasingly selective, according to di Stasi; “High-end works continue to perform strongly, particularly those with clear quality, scale, strong provenance and links to his key periods.” Demand, she adds, tends to focus on major oils from the late 1960s and 1970s, along with iconic subjects such as social scenes, portraits, musicians and still lifes. High-quality bronzes also remain in demand, benefiting from their public visibility, as many have been installed as public sculptures around the world, while smaller editions circulate widely at auction.
Botero’s pieces are no longer only purchased through specialized Latin American sales channels, and the buyer base for his work has become fully globalized. While Latin American collectors remain important, there is strong participation in the artist market in the US and Europe, with increasing interest from the Middle East and Asia. “Ultimately, prices have been boosted by these latest auction results, confirming stable international demand,” explains di Stasi.
Botero is consistently ranked among Latin America’s best-known artists, yet his auction record remains modest compared to those of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and even some lesser-known post-war figures. His current top score is $5.132 million musicianssold at Christie’s New York in 2023.
That his widespread global recognition has not translated into eight-figure auction prices can be attributed in part to the artist’s extensive output across paintings, drawings, bronzes and prints, as well as critical resistance to the accessibility and repetition of his images. The recurring presence of nudity in his work may also have limited its reception in some markets, particularly in countries such as the US, where a new (and paradoxical) Puritanism has taken hold. Botero’s estates, art galleries and auction houses are now actively recasting the work through exhibitions and secondary market offerings, both to strengthen its market value and to broaden its collector base.
More at the exhibitions
