BOGOTA.- Colombian sculptor and painter Fernando Botero has been released from a hospital. Both doctors and relatives say he's doing well. Juan David Botero tells The Associated Press his brother went to a hospital because he felt ill due to a sudden change in altitude as he travelled from sea level to the city of Rionegro at about 7,000 feet (2,130 meters).
He says the 79-year-old artist now is doing "very well."
Dr. Juan Manuel Sierra says Botero was examined by internists, cardiologists and urgent care specialists after coming to his San Vicente Foundation clinic on Tuesday.
Botero is famed for portrayals of fat figures. His monumental bronze sculpture titled "Dancers" was auctioned for more than $1.7 million in New York recently.
Botero was born in Medellín, Colombia in 1932. He moved to Bogotá in 1951 and had his first show there the same year at Galeria Leo Matiz. His first retrospective took place in 1970 in Germany at museums in Baden Baden, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hamburg. Since then, Botero has continually showed in museums all over the world. In the last ten years he has had an astounding number of museum shows in the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the United States.
Botero’s work can be found in forty-six museums. Among the most prominent are: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela; Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá, Colombia; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany; Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany; and The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Many books have been published on Botero’s work in English, Spanish, French, German Italian, Chinese and Japanese.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
