Museo Botero

The Museo Botero, also known as the Botero Museum, is an art museum located in La Candelaria neighborhood of Bogotá, Colombia. It houses mostly works by Colombian artist Fernando Botero, however it also includes artworks from others international artists that were part of Botero's private art collection.

The museum sees over 500,000 visitors annually, including 2,000 students per month. The museum is managed by the cultural branch of the Bank of the Republic and is part of La Candelaria cultural complex along with the Gold Museum, the Luis Ángel Arango Library, the Miguel Urrutia Art Museum, and the Museo Casa de Moneda.

History

Since the late 1960s, Colombian artist Fernando Botero had been a noted art collector, initially of pre-Columbian pieces, later of colonial art and more recently of drawing, painting and universal modern sculpture. Until 1999, all of his collections were scattered throughout his properties in New York, Paris, Monte Carlo and Pietrasanta, as well as in a Swiss bank deposit in Bogotá.

Since the mid-1990s, Botero had raised the possibility of donating his entire art collection to the Museum of Antioquia in Medellín. However, the slowness in making decisions by the Antioquia authorities led him to accept the proposal of the then mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, to donate his collection to the nation via its central bank.

In the year of 2000, the Colombian artist Fernando Botero donated 208 art pieces, 123 of his own making and 85 of other international artists, to the Bank of the Republic. The museum is administered by Banrepcultural.