(b. 1932 in Medellín, Colombia).
Botero is known for his paintings of voluptuous rounded figures that reflect both his reverence and mockery of European old master painters. As a teenager, he worked for a literary supplement of the newspaper El Colombiano, where he wrote and illustrated articles on Picasso and Dalí. He graduated from the Liceo de Antioquia Medellín in 1950, then moved to Bogotá where he was given his first solo exhibition in 1951 at the Galleria de Arte Foto-estudio Leo Matz. He then enrolled in the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, Spain, in 1952 often visiting the Museo del Prado to study and copy from the Spanish masters Goya and Velasquez. In 1953 he went to Florence, Italy, to study fresco painting at the Academia San Marco. Throughout his studies in Europe, Botero was devoted to studying and copying old master paintings. He returned to Bogotá in 1955 where his work was included in an exhibition at the
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