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Lot Essay
'I never sculpt from a model…my sculpture, like my painting is mostly a product of my imagination'.
– Fernando Botero
Beginning to sculpt in the 1970s, Fernando Botero propelled his interest in form and volume through nudes, dancing couples and the characterful animal creatures that had appeared in his paintings, often previously portrayed within domestic or circus scenes. Botero’s animal inventory included cats, dogs, birds and horses, varying in size from the very small to the domestic to the magnificently large. Each animal retains a distinctive character, borne not only of its animated characteristics but also, of its inherent proportions. In his unique and almost Mannerist style, Botero utilizes the exaggeration of tiny feet, large tails and tiny or enlarged heads to propel a characterful sensibility within each animal engendered from its own distinctive traits. The solid and stately proportions of his sculptural oeuvre and their universalized form lends Botero’s ménagerie a monumental, solid quality, retaining a great strength and power of presence inherent within which is a distinctively humorous element.
Cats, for the most part considered domestic animals in the West, also retain a celebrated position within the history of art and culture throughout the world. Sacred deities to the Ancient Egyptians, bringing good fortune within Chinese and Japanese cultures, figures of heroism and beauty in the wild from the noble lion to the mighty tiger, cats have generally been considered positive omens, interchangeably stealthy, mysterious, elegant, intelligent and charming in their relationship to humanity. In the early 20th century cats took on a more rogue and domestic flavor with the Parisian avant-garde, painted by the likes of Foujita, Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec as clever survivors within the urban jungle of the rues of Paris and evocative of a sleek, feline beauty. Botero draws on this heritage, with his renowned interest in the depths of art history, bringing a new portrayal to the lineage of cats depicted throughout time.
Botero’s Cat, in its exaggerated horizontal proportions and low, crouching stance, appears well-fed, with the rounded softness of domesticity. A playful contrast of elements animates his character, this strong, large and rolling body is immortalized in bronze, bearing a tiny little bell around the neck. This is no longer a hunting cat, the promise of a delicate jingle signifying his inability to chase birds or surprise humans, subverting its iconic monumentality in bronze, normally reserved for tributes to the classically valiant and brave, adorned with swords and other more serious metallic implements. Details such as this are all-important within Botero's formally-refined sculptures, providing a humorous punctum to his compositions. As such, in its pertinent details, Botero’s Cat is not dissimilar to Manet’s Olympia, her choker and other details of her person shifting Manet’s muse into a different cultural realm, that of a surprising commonness, rather than haughty celebrity. For Botero, memorialising the everyday becomes not solely a tribute to the happy, domestic cat, but a challenge to the established tradition of sculpture and its eternalizing nature, fixing attention on our desire to historicize, to worship, and questioning that which we value most.
– Fernando Botero
Beginning to sculpt in the 1970s, Fernando Botero propelled his interest in form and volume through nudes, dancing couples and the characterful animal creatures that had appeared in his paintings, often previously portrayed within domestic or circus scenes. Botero’s animal inventory included cats, dogs, birds and horses, varying in size from the very small to the domestic to the magnificently large. Each animal retains a distinctive character, borne not only of its animated characteristics but also, of its inherent proportions. In his unique and almost Mannerist style, Botero utilizes the exaggeration of tiny feet, large tails and tiny or enlarged heads to propel a characterful sensibility within each animal engendered from its own distinctive traits. The solid and stately proportions of his sculptural oeuvre and their universalized form lends Botero’s ménagerie a monumental, solid quality, retaining a great strength and power of presence inherent within which is a distinctively humorous element.
Cats, for the most part considered domestic animals in the West, also retain a celebrated position within the history of art and culture throughout the world. Sacred deities to the Ancient Egyptians, bringing good fortune within Chinese and Japanese cultures, figures of heroism and beauty in the wild from the noble lion to the mighty tiger, cats have generally been considered positive omens, interchangeably stealthy, mysterious, elegant, intelligent and charming in their relationship to humanity. In the early 20th century cats took on a more rogue and domestic flavor with the Parisian avant-garde, painted by the likes of Foujita, Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec as clever survivors within the urban jungle of the rues of Paris and evocative of a sleek, feline beauty. Botero draws on this heritage, with his renowned interest in the depths of art history, bringing a new portrayal to the lineage of cats depicted throughout time.
Botero’s Cat, in its exaggerated horizontal proportions and low, crouching stance, appears well-fed, with the rounded softness of domesticity. A playful contrast of elements animates his character, this strong, large and rolling body is immortalized in bronze, bearing a tiny little bell around the neck. This is no longer a hunting cat, the promise of a delicate jingle signifying his inability to chase birds or surprise humans, subverting its iconic monumentality in bronze, normally reserved for tributes to the classically valiant and brave, adorned with swords and other more serious metallic implements. Details such as this are all-important within Botero's formally-refined sculptures, providing a humorous punctum to his compositions. As such, in its pertinent details, Botero’s Cat is not dissimilar to Manet’s Olympia, her choker and other details of her person shifting Manet’s muse into a different cultural realm, that of a surprising commonness, rather than haughty celebrity. For Botero, memorialising the everyday becomes not solely a tribute to the happy, domestic cat, but a challenge to the established tradition of sculpture and its eternalizing nature, fixing attention on our desire to historicize, to worship, and questioning that which we value most.