Press Room: Press Release

Artworks by Latin America’s most popular living artist, Colombian-born Fernando Botero, will intrigue and inspire the San Antonio community this summer. San Antonio, one of the country’s most distinctive cultural centers, with a deep, enduring pride in Hispanic arts and artists, will be the first U.S. stop on a long-anticipated retrospective exhibition of 100 Botero paintings, prints and sculptures from the artist’s personal collection. 

Centering around this exhibition will be a community-wide Botero celebration —designated Botero: Beloved Artist of the Americas — a collaborative project between the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Southwest School of Art & Craft, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation and public television station KLRN.  

With the endorsement of honorary co-chairs Mayor Phil and Linda Hardberger, and steering committee chairs Andres Andujar and Amparo Ortiz, community groups are lining up to be part of the Botero excitement.  The scope of this city-wide celebration will build on the highly successful 2003 Dale Chihuly exhibitions that concluded with the installation of his glass sculpture at the Central Library.  Educational materials created by the institutions will explore how the distinctive work and style of Botero has intrigued and delighted viewers through the years.  In turn, the community educational outreach will be used in family- and child-centered offerings at various branch libraries throughout the city.

The San Antonio Library Foundation will organize a carnival-themed community event focused on the purchase and installation of a monumental Botero bronze sculpture for the San Antonio Central Library. Public television station KLRN will air Botero-related television programming during the exhibitions and will be the guiding force behind a project website to be launched in March 2007.  

Between May and August 2007, organizers anticipate that San Antonio will host thousands of Botero-loving visitors from Latin America, Mexico, other parts of Texas, and other Southwestern states.

These 100 works by Botero, whose last retrospective in the United States was in 1974, will be exhibited at the San Antonio Museum of Art and at the Southwest School of Art & Craft from May 26 through August 19, 2007. 

Considered a serious artist among critics, curators and collectors worldwide, Botero’s highly accessible and engaging style, along with appealing subject matter, will ensure great public response to the exhibition, which was organized and circulated by Art Services Intl, Alexandria, VA. 

In San Antonio, the exhibition is made possible through the generous sponsorship of the AT&T Foundation. Additional significant support has also been provided by the Robert J. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation and the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation. The partners also recognize and appreciate the services of Bromley Communications and the support of the Edouard Foundation.